Lisa Bruemmer, Director of Client Services for Cornerstone Kansas City Executive Search firm provides 5 questions to ask yourself to determine if you’re being professionally persistent with your contact during an executive search engagement.
People are busy. People are hooked on “busyness” and downtime has been downplayed or destroyed by constant “connection”. We are bombarded daily with emails, texts, tweets, pings, and telephone calls. I talk with people every day who are looking to hire a new employee, looking for a job, or passive candidates I have identified to fill a client’s executive hiring need. Everyone I connect with is BUSY.
When looking to add executive talent or make a change in employment, it is important to be professionally persistent. With the steady stream of daily information, it is easy for an email to get bumped to the bottom, texts to get lost, the phone call forgotten. Priorities change and remaining on task becomes challenging. So we ask ourselves: should I follow up? The answer is yes. In fact, it is imperative. Absolutely follow up but here are a few things to keep in mind:
- When was my last contact? Was a follow-up time indicated? Has that time passed?
- Be polite. Don’t take it personally if you haven’t heard back.
- Always be respectful of people’s time and realize they are juggling multiple responsibilities, deadlines and tasks most of which are unrelated to you. Don’t take a lack of contact personally. Professionalism is key.
- Resist the urge to get upset or to assume.
- If you’ve followed up more than once, simply ask if you should stop or the status of the engagement.
Making an executive hire can be an anxious time for both client and candidate. Always remember the three P’s: Polite, Professional, Persistence and then just relax and rest assured that “we’ll get back to you”.
