The target person (or people) isn’t your friend, someone who you can call out of the blue just to catch up. If you bombard this person with calls or emails, especially without a good reason, you will assuredly turn them off. And if you try to get in contact too sparsely, they will forget about you.

So, you must strike a balance by pacing and scheduling your job search follow-ups. This allows you to be present in the target company’s consciousness for a long time. If you communicate on a scheduled, ongoing basis, you demonstrate an unfailing interest in their company and will likely imprint yourself on a hiring recruiter’s memory. All of your seemingly spontaneous interest in the target company will actually be the result of your implementation of a master plan of follow-ups.

Planning Your Job Search Follow-ups
Planning is fundamental to a successful job search.

To plan your job search follow-ups, open your Job Search Follow-up Email and add your follow-up schedule to the top. We will demonstrate a potential format for the job search plan below. While this may work for many people, feel free to tailor it to your situation. You could add the specific dates planned for each follow up, or write more notes about the content of each communication, or whatever will help you devise a thorough communication scheme.

We suggest the use of important abbreviations and symbols. In our example, “d” stands for “days,” “w” for “weeks,” and “m” for “months” following the job search start date.

Tasks for XYZ Corporation Job Search – Start 1/15/2010:
4d: follow-up call
2w: re-send resume and cover letter with “I will call in a week” phrase
3w: follow-up call
6w: follow-up call
2m: friendly note
3m: follow-up call

You have now created a master plan of job search follow-ups. This master plan should be placed at the top of your Job Search Follow-up Email. This email is now ready to be sent.

If the first activity is scheduled for 4 days, address the Job Search Follow-up Email to 4d@iTickleMe.com. If your first follow-up is 2 weeks, address your email to 2w@iTickleMe.com. Only send to the first follow-up date in your plan.

When you receive your Job Search Follow-up Email in the future, after you perform the follow-up activity, you will then re-forward it to the next time interval in your plan. At that time in the future, open the email, perform the task, and re-forward again. It’s as if you are a quarterback throwing a pass to yourself… in the future.

See how easy it is to create and manage a job search management system? One Job Search Follow-up Email carries everything you need to be effective in your job search. The availability of all needed information in one email allows your follow-ups to be not only targeted to the job and people you are pursuing, but you will do so in an amazingly efficient way.

The plan shown above is just a sample. You should create a follow-up plan that is right for you. As you use the system, you will learn more about what time intervals work best in your situation. This system allows you to make changes on the fly. If you want to change the follow-up plan, just edit it in the Job Search Follow-up Email.

Now you have a firm schedule of follow-ups. Planning your follow-up communications, and implementing this plan, will give you an identity which will help you stand out above the crowd of other applicants, and will help you build critically needed business relationships. This consistent, scheduled communication will strengthen your candidacy for a job and put you many steps closer to being hired.

In our next post, entitled “Types of Job Search Follow-Ups,” we will discuss how to stick to this schedule and make the most of it using iTickleMe.


iTickleMe Job Search GUARANTEE:

Follow this plan for 4 months, initiating at least 10 new contacts every day (this is easy once you get the hang of it). If you don’t have a job at the end of 4 months of implementing this program and you wish to discontinue service, simply notify us at support@iTickleMe.com and we will refund your $19.95 in full! You have nothing to lose, and a lifetime of rewarding employment to gain. You owe it to yourself and your family

The most powerful tool you can have in your job search is iTickleMe Email Reminders.You can try it free for 90 days.