By | Elliott Bell | www.themuse.com
I had a conversation with a friend the other day about his job search that went something like this:
Friend: I wrote to him last week and still haven’t heard back. It’s so frustrating.
Me: Why not follow up and check in?
Friend: I don’t want to be annoying.
I understand the fear. No one wants to be annoying or bothersome to a professional contact, especially when you want a job, meeting, sales dollars, or something else very important from that person.
But here’s the rub. The average person can get a few hundred emails a day. That makes it pretty tough to respond to all of them, and things naturally fall to the bottom of the list. If you don’t get a response, it doesn’t mean that someone’s ignoring you—it just may mean that he or she is too busy.
So, to the question: Should you follow up?
Absolutely. In fact, it’s your job.