Thursday, June 2, 2016

Hello? Hello? – by Susan Vagnoni Murphy


In a comment received on my last blog Remaining Flexible in the Hunt I was asked: “Is silence the new black? What's a girl to make of it when a job prospect or contact goes silent after a promising connection?”
The comment echoed stories of fellow job seekers and my personal experience. Example: an interview that felt very encouraging to me ended with, “We will call you by the end of next week.” Then…silence. I waited till the beginning of the week after to write a upbeat email asking where they were in their selection process. Silence. I waited again to send one more email inquiring if the position had been filled.  You guessed it…silence.
An article* from Forbes quoted a 2013 CareerBuilder survey stating that among 3,991 employees, 60% said they’ve experienced this (no response) as a job candidate. The article went on to quote HR expert Steve Kane. “This should never happen at a sophisticated, progressive employer. Obviously, if someone is going through the effort of preparing for an interview, they deserve some idea of their likelihood of receiving an offer.”
My appeal to employers is this - we understand you are very busy, but any response, even a stock one, is better than nothing at all. If your comment may be a little negative, we will learn from that and prepare for our next interview.  If we are pricing ourselves out of the competition that, too, is invaluable to know. When there is no-response, we feel diminished.  The job search journey is hard enough without at least being acknowledged when you make it as far as the interview process.
I also admit we applicants need to be thick-skinned in our employment hunt.  It can be a brutal process and your self-esteem takes hit. My tip this month is to give you tools to keep you on top of your response to the response process.  Google offers Boomerang, a free, downloadable addendum to Gmail that will remind you when to send follow-ups to perspective employers. Boomerang lets you to set a time limit, say a week, and will return your email to you as a reminder if you do not get a response in that period.
For the part where you just need to feel better and move on with dignity, I suggest signing on to receive daily or weekly messages from Mike Dooley at TUT. His Notes from the Universe have given me a surprising lift just when I needed it.  Of course a visit with a good friend or family member can also do wonders.
Yours in responsiveness, Susan

No comments:

Post a Comment