Are you wasting their time?

When you are looking for a job you want to contact and connect with as many people as possible. The more connections you have, the more likely you will make the right connections.
BUT are you an asset or liability to those connections?
Do your emails, your phone calls, your visits add value to their days, their lives? OR, worse yet, are you wasting their time?
When you apply for a job online, by email, fax or mail, do you follow up with a phone call to verify they received your application, your resume, your cover letter?
You may be fortunate and connect to someone who takes some time from their busy schedule to talk with you. But have you added value to their day?
And after your application is in process, are you easily reachable?
Do you make it easy for employers to know what they need to know about you? Are your application and your resume complete and error free? Do you have additional information, such as references, a complete LinkedIn profile, diplomas, degrees and transcripts, and work samples, readily available?
Can employers get in touch with you quickly and easily? Is your voice mail set up properly and professionally? To be certain, maybe you should call yourself and listen to what they will hear.
Do you have an email address that is easy to understand and remember for employers? Does your email even work? To be certain, maybe you should email yourself and see what they will see.
And do you check your voice mail, your email throughout each day? Or, better yet, do you stay in close touch with them?
And are you an asset or a liability?
When you make your contact, what is your purpose? Is it all about what you want, what you need? Are you entitled to their time, their return call, their help? And that is according to whom, to what rule?
If you keep taking from them, wasting their time, giving nothing in return, you are a liability. And you are even more of a liability if you make being in touch with you difficult for them.
Approach all of your contacts keeping in mind how you can be of value to them and how you can minimize their effort in getting back, and staying in touch, with you. If you keep withdrawing from any shared account you might have without contributing, very soon you will be overdrawn and have no credit with them at all. They will have no reason to stay in touch with you. They may even close the account, stop all contact with you, and feel you owe them big.
Stop wasting their time.
Respect all your contacts. Be considerate of their time, their effort and their value to you.
Be clear, complete, quick and concise in your emails and phone calls. Short and sweet is the way.
Hopefully, you will find ways to add value for them. But, at the very least, don't be wasting their time.

Make effective use of your time by using the job search resources at JVS. Visit www.jvsdet.org for calendars of upcoming events, weekly meetings and seminars, for links to JVS on Facebook and Twitter, for our online job bank, and more.

As always, you can reach me at wtarrow@jvsdet.org and on LinkedIn.

Now go out there and make some contact happy,

Walt