What to Do With Your Job Search After Hearing Well Get Back to You

What to Do With Your Job Search After Hearing Well Get Back to YouWhat to Do With Your Job Search After Hearing Well Get Back to YouAs if a job search wasnt already frustrating enough, we often get absolutely no response to many job applications. If youre lucky enough to get an interview, you may be told, Well get back to you. Then you begin to wonder How long do I have to wait to hear back? Is it OK if I follow up and when is it appropriate to do so?Whether youve received no response or been told that youll hear back, there are some creative, non-intrusive ways to tackle the uncertainty. See 8 Tacky Job Search Faux Pas.Reach out. If youve applied for a job and you do leid have any direct or indirect contacts at the company through your networks, including on LinkedIn, its time to dig deeper. Ideally, you should do this before you apply for a job to address your cover letter to a real person. But if youve already applied, check out the companys website. Can you find a page with leade rship or staff and determine who might be the head of the department where youve applied? If not, is senior human resources staff listed?You may be able to determine their email address as you research, but if you cant, try contacting them through LinkedIn. In your note, dont just ask for the position of your application. You should tell them you are following up on your application to learn the status, and briefly in one or two sentences summarize why you are a good match against the job requirements. Attach your resume. Ask if they have a colleague with whom you can get in touch to find out more about your pending application.See How to Follow Up on a Job Application Without Being Annoying.Play the waiting game. Whether youve had an interview or not, you may have been told, Well get back to you. This may sound like an easy dismissal, but it isnt necessarily. They may be waiting for a hiring manager to review all of the resumes or come back from a vacation to do so. There are a l ot of variables at play that you know nothing about. Look at the bright side in this scenario you have a contact, unlike in the example above. If you are just waiting to hear if youll be asked for an interview, sit tight for a week. Then get back in touch with the person. Emphasize that you are a good match against the job requirements and ask politely when you should expect to hear more about the status of your application.At an interview, make sure you ask when you should expect to hear something. Hopefully the employer will give you a time frame and stick to it. But again, many unforeseen variables can be at play and it may be an inaccurate estimate. If you dont hear back within the given amount of time, or if youre only told, Well get back to you, how long should you wait to contact them?See The 8 Stages of a Winning Job Search.Practice professional persistence. You need to have some degree of patience in this situation. Emailing and then calling immediately to find out if som eone got your email is not a respectable approach, and neither is asking for a read receipt confirmation because lets be honest most people find those annoying. You should wait four to five days to follow up if youve been told that theyll get in touch with you. Email the person. If you dont hear back, follow up with a phone call two days later. If you decide to leave a message and dont hear back, dont push your luck. Wait to be contacted. If you decide not to leave a message, call again the next day. At that point, you might want to leave a brief message and then hope for the best.Last but not least, if youve applied to a company and followed up directly asking if theyve received your application and havent heard back, it is probably a dead lead. These are not worth your time. Do you want to work for people who are not getting back to you with a yes or no answer despite your best efforts? Your answer should be a resounding no But make sure that youve done your homework and followed up before you give up because there could be other reasons you havent heard back that have nothing to do with you.The 10 Most Common Interview Questions