Monday, July 19, 2004
Well, here's the conundrum of the day...do I make the calls? My wife is more nervous than I am...of course, she's 7-months pregnant, but she's understandibly nervous about the lack of action on the part of the job search. Not by me, but by those who are lucky enough to get the package from me...resume and stuff. Virtually all of the postings I find for people in my line of work say "No calls" and some are even what they call, "stealth openings"...let me explain:
Stealth openings are positions that are currently filled by someone else and management is secretly looking for someone to replace them...so they can (to use a popular phrase) "move in a different direction." Very little information is displayed by these openings other than what the basic job might be, a general area where it might be, and an anonymous email address to send information to. There's not much to go on in the way of tailoring a resume or audition tape to send...so you just have to rely on your gut instinct when applying for these openings.
Email kind of scares me a little too. I love the internet and the immediate availability of information - sending and receiving...but it doesn't give you the kind of security you have with physically mailing something. Often, I'll email something off and wonder - did it go out, did the person receive it, are they reading it, do they have a spam blocker that causes them to delete it before they read it, or do attachments scare them from opening something? I've sent a lot of stuff and I'll never know if I met the qualifications they're seeking or if they even read what I sent.
Now, to the infamous NO CALLS angle. As a former Program Director, and with my 10-years experience in hiring/firing situations, when I posted a job opening on a radio trade website and I said, "No Calls"...I meant it. If someone were to call me after sending me their stuff, I figured they were either stupid or couldn't read. After all, if they can't follow a simple statement like NO CALLS...how do I expect they'll be able to follow simple instructions once they're hired?
BUT...
I'm in that kind of a position...people around me are urging me to call after I sent my stuff...wait a sufficient amount of time, then place a courtesy call. I know that if they just talk to me in person, I can talk myself into a job...
Well? Do I call or not?
I think the only compromise I can come up with is to follow up an email message to each of the places I have sent my stuff to...I'll let you know if it works.
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