“Wait Time” & Follow-Up

Posted on March 5th, 2008, by Meggin McIntosh

Question:

Hello Meggin!
I wanted to follow up with the lead you gave me last week in regard to 2 administrators. I sent them an e-mail introduction and statement of interest as well as a resume and reference letter attached on February 28. When should I expect a response, and /or when should I make my next contact?

Posted by Michele Luck | 3/5/08

Answer:

Hi, Michele and welcome! This is a great question for all MEMc members in terms of response & follow-up time.

There’s a fine line between following up and pestering…and we all need to find that “right place.” Most of us are so worried about pestering that we delay TOO long and then when we follow up with someone, they don’t even remember who we are or what we sent them.

My suggestion is to send them a follow-up email and/or phone call within 2 weeks of when you first sent your information. Just a gentle, “Hi…just wanted to follow up and make sure that my email and attachments got to you. I know that sometimes things get screened out by spam filters. I have also sent you my information via the US mail so you can be watching for that.”

This is perfectly legitimate because school district email filters are weirdly strict…so your email (with the attachments) may never have gotten through to them. A hard copy is a good idea.

After you’ve sent the hard copy, then I would call and follow up with them again (within about 10 days) and see if you could set up a brief appointment. You might even specify that you’d like to meet with them for 15 minutes, no longer. They are super busy and if they know you only want to come in for a short time, then that will help.

Does this help? And keep asking more questions along this line because I think this helps everyone.

Thanks!