Are You Branding Yourself As A Job Stalker - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Are You Branding Yourself As A Job Stalker - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Nobody means to brand themselves as a job stalker yet job seekers accidentally do this every day. What you view as innocently being proactive and following-up can easily cross the razors edge into crazy stalker, without you realizing what youve done. Being proactive is appreciated, if youre the top candidate it confirms to the hiring manager that he/she has made the right choice. But what if youre not the top candidate? If youre not the top candidate, being proactive is often ignored, because you arent a priority of the hiring manager. You might have even been told to follow up in a couple weeks, but if your follow up doesnt get a response, continued follow up is unlikely to improve your chances. Worse, it usually makes you look like a job stalker. Here are 5 things that seem like follow up but brand you as a job stalker: Leaving a voice mail every day (or even every other) until you reach someone: Just because the hiring manager told you they would contact you in 2 weeks, doesnt mean they will. Things change, priorities change, and if youre not the top candidate, youre not the hiring priority like it or not. Calling constantly wont change this, but heres what it will do if you were still being consider or on the bubble, youve killed your chances by continuously calling. Because you sound like a stalker and maybe a little crazy. Calling without leaving a voice mail repeatedly: News Flash Businesses have caller ID too. Calling just to follow up more than once: When you call just to follow up dont expect a return call because just following up adds no value to the hiring manager (nor HR). When you call just to follow up more than once, now youre wasting the hiring managers (or HRs) time. When you keep calling just to follow up, youve crossed the line into stalker city. Sounding annoyed (or upset) on Voice Mail because you havent been called back: When youre searching for a job, youd better develop a thick skin if you seem the least bit annoyed, youve blown any chance you might have had with the hiring manger. Sure youre upset that you werent called back when HR or the hiring manager promised. Simple rule dont call if youre pissed. Emailing to follow up repeatedly: Emailing repeatedly to follow up is even worse, because you leave a paper trail for an employer to remember how much of their time youve wasted. As an added bonus, that paper trail reminds HR that youve acted like a job stalker. Many candidates ignore the lessons they should have learned by dating in high school that no response is an answer. It is closure youre just not listening. Thats not to say that follow up is a bad idea its not. But for Gods sake, add some value when you call if you dont want to be ignored. Calling just to follow up adds zero value to hiring managers or HR, but instead wastes their time. And following up, even when you provide value eventually turns into job stalking. Heres a hint empty follow up quickly turns you into a stalker. But the more value you provide, the less likely your contacts will be ignored. So the less likely youll seem like a job stalker. Author: Phil Rosenberg is President of http://www.reCareered.com, a leading job search information website and gives complimentary job search webinars at http://ResumeWebinar.com. Phil also runs the Career Central group, one of Linkedin’s largest groups for job seekers and has built one of the 20 largest personal networks on Linkedin globally.