Don’t Just Follow Up — Give Them More Reasons to Hire You
By Kevin Donlin | June 19th, 2008
For years, I’ve written articles like this that urged people to follow up with employers after submitting your resume or interviewing, to demonstrate your desire to work for them.
But it’s not enough to just follow up every week with the same message — “Did you make a decision? Have you hired anyone yet?”
That gets old, fast, and can make you look like a stalker.
Instead, you need to give employers another reason to hire you with every contact you make.
When following up, send a brief e-mail, followed by a phone call one week later, followed by a fax, then an e-mail, etc. Repeat until they’ve made a decision. Try to share something useful each time you contact an employer, whether it’s a trend you see among software end users, input on a competitor’s product—whatever.
Your objective in following up is to give employers another reason to call you. Since almost none of the other applicants will be doing this, it’s an easy way to stand out.
Here are exceprts from an article in the AsburyPark Press (now deleted from their site) along those lines. Key quotes:
Now that you’ve met, your goal is to drop periodic bits of strategic data to help the employer understand more deeply what you offer.
For example, let’s say you’re wooing an employer for the position of wellness adviser. Instead of just calling or e-mailing to remind the employer you’re out there, feed her information that shows your stuff.
In this case, you want her to see how your problem-solving mind works and how current and informed you are. So because you are indeed staying current, this morning you just read about a new study that found stark racial disparities in how diabetic patients are treated — a major issue this employer deals with. But the study says the different treatment is due to a systemic failure to tailor treatments to patients’ cultural norms — not overt racism, as they had thought. Do you have ideas on how they might institute a program to address this issue? Share a few key points.
Besides demonstrating your value, you’re paving the way to reach another goal — to open up opportunities for more conversation with this employer.
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