Proper Interview Follow-Up
Yesterday I had the pleasure and opportunity to be part of a panel for the Linked In group, Cleveland Professionals in Transition. I had the pleasure of fielding what I thought to be a very consistent voice of job seekers with three other great panelist. Sue Ann Naso, President – Staffing Solutions Enterprises, Shannon Cross, VP Marketing & Sales – CareerBoard, Sunny Lurie, President – Fast Focus Careers.
All very experienced career professionals that will be beneficial for you to know, network with and investigate if their services would be helpful to your career search and objectives.
There will be a few blog posts that come out of this due to the fact that there was a significant amount of thoughts and directions we can go with this. I want to publish some of the common questions that we hear daily as well as some that were brought up at the conference that was hosted at the Beachwood office of The University of Phoenix.
- “The state of the Market from a recruiters perspective” question.
- Plain Dealer printed an article stating that the turn of the economy won’t happen until 2012, what is your take on that?
- Do I post multiple times for the same job opening?
- Should I have a presence on all of the job boards and sites?
- How effective is social networking in finding a job
- Sales Letter versus Cover Letter
- What is the appropriate type or frequency of follow-up?
- Should I have a picture on my social and professional networking sites? Is there some form of discrimination or judgment passed because of the picture?
- On a resume (or profile), should I represent ALL my experience or just the last few years?
I couldn’t imagine trying to answer everyone of these questions online or else I would spend the rest of my day typing something that most of people probably wouldn’t read. Let me answer one in particular that drove some deeper discussion.
Let’s take a look at the proper and appropriate type or frequency of follow-up.
There is clearly an Art and a Science to the principle of follow-up. So the science behind it is that follow-up needs to exist. So then the Art, how do we actually follow-up after an interview? In the world of technology, it is completely appropriate to send an email. This is not a novel. Two or three paragraphs will do. Keep the email “above the fold” meaning try to keep it to a length that the person will not need to scroll. No attachments, most people don’t take the time to open it. The content should be along the lines of thank you and a point of reiteration of your interest.
The frequency of follow-up should be same day of your interview. If you closed the interview appropriately, you may have an idea of the decision making process. With that said, it will determine the best type of frequency. If you do not know that, give it three days. Call with a purpose for example, “I wanted to connect with you to see if there was anything else you needed from me in order to get prepared of next steps.” Try to avoid words like “just checking in” that add no value.
I wish you much success.
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Comments
This event brought a lot of job seeker concerns to the surface. With all of the information on the internet, it’s hard to deceifer what is the right thing to do. By having these experts at this event, the job seekers were able to identify what the experts are seeing and recommend within the NEO market. It was great information for everyone to discuss.
Thanks Darrin! Great information here!
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