Several months ago Miriam Salpeter of Keppie Careers interviewed me for her Examiner column. One of the questions she asked is “When does “follow-up” become stalking?”
Cartoon by Hugh MacLeod
A candidate emailed his resume to me on a Tuesday and called five seconds later “to be sure I’d received it.” He said that he wanted me to “find him a job.” I told him I needed time to review his resume against current openings and asked that he give me a week before following up as I was inundated with such requests.
He called the very next morning and wanted to know if I’d reviewed his resume. I said that I had not, and asked him again to please give me a few days. I suggested that he follow up with me the following Monday. Two days later, on Friday, he emailed stating that he would call shortly to “discuss what jobs I had for him.”
I replied immediately stating that there was no need; I’d reviewed his resume and didn’t have anything for him at the moment and would be happy to keep him in mind for future openings. I suggested that he do a search on LinkedIn for other financial services recruiters, reach out to them, and let them know the type of opportunity he’s seeking.
He immediately called and wanted to “discuss why I didn’t have anything for him.” I explained that my open positions are based on my clients’ needs and that right now his experience and skill sets are not a match for anything I’m working on. He proceeded to argue with me and kept insisting that he has “valuable skills” and “WILL DO ANYTHING.”
I explained that if I don’t have a position that’s a fit, I don’t have it – and I can’t just pull one out of a hat! He became increasingly annoyed and wanted me to send him a list of my current searches so he could “see if he’s a fit for one of them.” I told him no, that I had his resume, and that I would keep him under consideration for future opportunities. He then offered me “a few hundred bucks” to “find him a job.” (We’ve covered this before…that’s not what recruiters do!)
This job seeker was pushy and disrespectful. He acted with a sense of entitlement and frankly, based on his attitude and behavior, I would be extremely reluctant to present such a candidate to any of my clients.
So what should I do?
As far as how and how often to follow up…ask the recruiter, hiring manager, or HR professional that you’re working with! I personally prefer a brief email once or twice a month.
Remember, the job of recruiters (and the way we get paid!) is to fill openings for our clients. If we have a job that you may be a fit for, we’ll be on the phone with you immediately.
But I need a job and no one is calling me back.
It’s possible that they’re not calling you back because
- You are not qualified for the job.
- You meet the minimum qualifications but other candidates are a better fit for the job / company.
- They don’t have any news.
- You’re stalking them.
During the interview process the amount of time it takes to get feedback or to move from one step to the next depends on the client and the situation.
- How urgent is the need?
- Who is an integral part of the process and is traveling / on vacation / otherwise unavailable?
Many times the interview process does not move as quickly as anyone would like simply because there are so many people and variables involved.
There is no need to call your recruiter daily – when we have news we’ll call you. There is nothing we want more than to fill the position! We do what we can to keep the interview process moving forward and at the same time walk a fine line so as not to irritate our clients.
Want to get the job? Don’t make people hate you by stalking them.
Be politely persistent, and understand and respect the process.
For more information you can contact Stephanie here and you can find her on Twitter at @StephanieALloyd and @JobSnob.
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This post made me laugh out loud. I love my candidates and know that even though they aren’t the ones who pay me, I would not be successful without them. I appreciate the relationship I am able to develop with each of them and feel great satisfaction in my ability to help them to make a successful career transition.
Having said that, it is important for candidates to know the different types of recruiters that are out there and what their role is in helping them. As Stephanie said, “Be politely persistent, and understand and respect the process.”
Paula Wood
http://www.financerecruiter.com
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulawood
Twitter: http://www.twiter.com/@financejobs
STephanie, I completely agree and I posted about this last week on my twitter acct. I had an employee referral, whom I screened, mostly as a courtesy at the time. I told him things were loosening up out there and to stayed tuned, I may have something for him. He also mentioned he’d reached out to other people at the company, which I said, “fine, great!- in this market, you have to continue to network!”. Well, lo and behold a week later, I had something he may fit and immediately called him and submitted to hiring manager. They interviewed him right away- in the interim, he called me every day, and emailed after the voicemail, starting before 6am my time (home office). He was nice, but kind of driving me crazy.
Anyway, interview did not work out, and I told him this, and he proceeded to contradict himself with me and the interviewer feedback in addition to emailing and calling multiple names he had at the company. I just started to get annoyed. The end result- I tried to help this guy, was really proactive about it, and now I am loathe to present him for anything else that may come up because he drove me completely crazy with his persistence.
So yes, there is definitely a fine line. Be professional and ask for constructive feedback… and everything else you mentioned above!
Stephanie, great post! I wish people realized that stalking can be a deal-breaker; when I’m hiring, I’m looking for people who demonstrate some business savvy … or at least don’t demonstrate a lack of it, by this kind of stalkerish behavior.
As a Corporate Recruiter I had this type of persistent unprofessional “follow-up” on several occasions as well as threats of “If you don’t hire me I’ll claim discrimination” and an actual frivolous EEOC complaint which made me wish my phone calls were recorded. It’s the complete opposite of the great resume in your face that seems to have no valid contact information.
It could be chalked up to unprofessionalism or desperation or both, but I tend to think it is simply the manifestation of unfortunate compulsive behavior. No one in their right mind could be “pressured” into giving someone an interview much less resisting the urge to shred a resume.
After a while I learned to manage candidates and adopted the following approach which worked out very well for me.
I would send a receipt of resume email clearly stating that contact would be made in 2 business days if there was a potential match for a current position. If not, resumes would be kept on file in a searchable database that would be consulted only if and when there were other opportunities and further contact could not be expected unless there were a potential match.
I learned not to commit to or decline a next step during a phone screen, instead indicating that next step notification would be made by email. And so on and so forth, each step notification was promised by email. If I were really interested I would call the candidate back in a few hours but that expectation was never set.
All calls went directly to voice mail to be screened even if not on a call. It took time to discipline myself in this way and to figure out a system that worked for me, but when I found it I found it worked quite well.
Of course I had an enormous amount of wonderful experiences with candidates as well, some so memorable I will never forget them in a very endearing way. Every job has its potential hazard and working with people opens us to an infinite amount of behaviors.
Wow, great post. It is disruptive to have to stop what I’m doing to take multiple calls like this everyday. I’m not sure where people learned that they need to call (and keep calling and keep calling) to check on the status of their resume, but it’s the one piece of job-seeking advice many people have taken to heart and run with! They will ignore every other tip in the book (like spell-checking), LOL, but they won’t let this one go.
I’ve also had people call me with an accusatory tone of voice saying “I sent a resume two days ago and I *still* haven’t heard from you!” Where does the sense of entitlement come from, I wonder? I do send a receipt in response to each emailed resume, but that’s about all I have time for, unless I actually want to contact you to discuss a position.
Sometimes when people call ‘just checking on the status of my application,’ I’m half-tempted to tell them the truth: it’s sitting in a pile. LOL, yep, you asked, you wanted to know, and that’s the truth!
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