Stop bothering the hiring manager

Chris Wodke

http://www.summittrainingpublications.com/

I have seen the advise in several articles lately about following up the interview by calling the hiring manager, sending articles to the hiring manager, arranging to meet the manager at networking events, inviting the hiring manager to join your network on Linkin and so on.  I have also seen advice about calling the hiring manager to see if your resume has been received, and where you are in the hiring process, etc. Enough already!  I am going to tell  you why this is really bad advise.
   
  I am currently the hiring manager for my department. Hiring is only a small part of my job.  I currently have 20 resumes sitting on my desk for a position currently on hold for economic reasons.  No amount of calling or contact is going to get any one of those candidates an interview or even hired. I have lots to do to keep me busy without getting calls from candidates.  Calling may even hurt you becasue you may be annoying the people you will be working with or even for.
Calling does not help you during any part of the process. It only annoys one of the people (me), who will be making the selection on who will be interviewed.  Any candidate chosen has to pass an HR phone screen, take a skills related exam, a psychological inventory, go through interviewing and a job shadow.  The candidate chosen for the position is the one that does the best in this process. No amount of phone calls or other contact with me the hiring manager is going to influence the hiring decision. It may in fact work against you if you are too persistent.  The exception here is checking through your network. Maybe you have a friend or a neighbor who knows the hiring manager (me) and they can casually inquire where we are in the process. This a good way to use your network, since your contact may also be a friend of mine.  While I welcome recommendations from people I know, I don't enjoy getting phone calls from total strangers.

After we choose a candidate HR must check credit, references and do a background and security check. Our HR department does this for the entire 4000 -person company so the process takes time.  No amount of calling is going to speed that process along. All you will do is irritate me the hiring manager and I am going to be your future boss. So do you really want to irritate me before you ever start with the company.  I have even had candidates send emails offering to work for free for 3 months while we try them out.  We didn't make an offer to the candidate because they were not qualified. Offering to work for free was not going to change that.  So think twice about calling. The one exception would be if you have another offer pending. Then it is ok, to inquire of HR where you are in the process. That is fair to you so you can make a decision.
There is one other time it is ok to call. You should call HR if you send your resume electronically to be sure it was received.  Do this only if you do not get an email confirmation.  Then ...I know this is hard, you have to wait until you are called for a phone screen and then wait for the interview. After the interview send a thank you note to everyone involved in the interview then, yes you wait again. Hopefully you were the candidate that we feel is the best fit and will be joining our organization.

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