What is the best way to follow up after submitting a resume?

Published by Nitin Kumar on September 14th, 2011

After applying for a job and forwarding your resume, in most cases you are supposed to make some follow-ups to be sure that things are going on as you would expect. Following up on your resume submission is appropriate and highly recommended and as opposed to what many people may sometime think, making a resume follow up is not in any way part of the job application process but is just a precautionary measure to ensure that your details arrive in time and at the right desk.

Now that is not the problem if anything many career seeking individuals understand this quite rightly but the problem is how do you make a follow up that will ensure that your details get the fair chance they deserve and at the same time, you more less keep a distance in the hiring process which to be honest is an inevitable imperative.

The best ways to follow up after you submit your resume will depend on a number of factors and the process or approach chosen will in some degree reflect this considerations. To start with, you are supposed to establish contact when the time is right.

What this means is this, you just can’t submit a resume today and you are out making a follow-up the next minute no, you should give the employer ample time to receive your details and this normally will take some weeks. In case you now have no responses, then you can start to make the follow up. The first thing that you will have to do even before anything is to establish the best way to contact your employer that will make sure you reach them precisely and secondly you do not interrupt their schedules.

The best way you can actually do this is by email. Email inquiries are likely to be addressed since in most cases if not all, there is some time in the employers’ schedule that is specifically allotted to reading of emails. This way you will be getting your request to the right person without affecting his or her works.

Now after you have managed to get the best contact, the second thing should be what to write. As much as you are supposed to be modest as possible, you are also supposed to be precise with your questions and in fact, you are advised to structure your inquiries in a manner that the answer will be definite such as yes or no or true or false. Don’t ask about other people’s resumes, stay relevant to your questions remember this is a personal inquiry.

Secondly your mail should contain some contact information that you can be easily reached and even though some may find tricky to include this, make sure you give a specific time frame that you can be available for contact. Finally, your follow up should reflect concern and not complain. You should write concerned about you resume and not complaining why it hasn’t received any attebtion.