From: dooley@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Kevin Dooley)
Subject: Re: What to do after sending out resumes?
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 20:13:08 GMT

In article <Bw2q0p.F0z@news.udel.edu> zheng@brahms.udel.edu (Xian-Feng Zheng) writes:
>I have questions concerning the process of job application. It seems to me 
>it takes long time for some potential employers to process job applications
>(Is it itself usual?). What am I supposed to do after sending out my resumes? 
>Surely I should not  just sit there waiting for the good new's coming. BUt if 
>you have call them for a couple times only to hear "we are still scanning 
>resumes", what are you going to do then? Wait or continue to call. I don't 
>want to give them impression I push them too hard. But if I stop calling,
>I am afraid I would miss decisive time. Any suggestions and ideas? 

I would say be patient.  Think about what the employer is going through.
You have likely sent out two sorts of resumes: cold ones, and those in
response to advertised positions.  Cold resumes result in acknowledgements
about half the time, and nothing the rest of the time (note to employers:
please send PFO's in response to cold resumes that you can't use, it is
a courtesy, and you don't want to alienate people who might be valuable
to you after a few more years of experience).  Don't assume that just 
because you get a PFO which says that they have nothing right now but 
they'll keep you on file for 6 months that they are just giving you the 
brush off.  Usually this is exactly the truth, and I personally have been 
called in for interviews as the result of a cold resume which was on the
employer's files.

For the other sort of resume, those in response to an advertisement, often 
the response is so overwhelmingly large that there is no way that each 
applicant can be interviewed, although most employers will send an 
acknowledgement.  Then you have to wait while they sift through the resumes 
and decide who to call for an interview.  I usually allow a month for them
to call me in for an interview.  If I have heard nothing after that time, 
I assume that they are not going to call.  It would be nice if they would
send a letter saying that you won't be called, but I can forgive people
for not doing so because the sheer number of such letters which would need
to be sent for each position is too large in many cases.

Usually with a large response the employer will go through two sets of 
interviews before making the final offers.  During this time you should 
be sending out lots more cold resumes and responding to other advertisements.
They are considering other people besides you, so you should consider other
companies besides them, even if you think that this is the only place you
would consider working!  I know of no particular way to make it go faster 
or to ensure that you get interviewed, but pestering the human resources 
people is probably a good way of making sure you do not.

Also remember that the job of most human resources people in large companies
is simple buzz-word matching.  The people who know what they want give a 
list of buzz-words to the human resources department and ask them to scan 
resumes for these words to find a list of people to interview.  You will
therefore maximize your chances of getting an interview if your resume 
lists your skills in some detail.  If you know C or RDBMS or whatever, 
say so on the resume.  However, never never never misrepresent yourself or
your skills either in person or on the resume.

Best of luck,
	Kevin
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc