I am currently unemployed - I do some teaching and a few minor consulting roles, but I don’t have a full time career employer. I have a target list of organisations to whom I believe I can add value and have been approaching people within these companies for coffee meetings to introduce myself.
About three weeks ago I had a meeting with a senior person from a company I’m actually very keen to work at. We got on like a house on fire, practically completing each others sentences. She undertook to get me in front of the CEO and was enthusiastic about me saying that the company was always looking for smart people, etc, etc.
I left the meeting feeling buoyed, confident and happy. Imagine my surprise when I got an email that evening saying:
"It was a pleasure to catch up with you today.
I have forwarded your resume to our HR department, as well as discussing your experience with some of our Senior Management.
Should a position come up that sits within your frame of reference, we will be in touch, however at this time we are fully resourced. That can change at any time, as I’m sure you are aware.
Good luck for the future."
OK - so that’s game over for the time being. But about now is the time when I should be giving them a nudge to say I’m still here and still keen, but I just can’t seem to arrive at a form of words that works. How can I phrase an approach to them that will put me back in their consciousness without being pushy or annoying!
First thing to do is to go to their website and see if there are any openings listed even close to the stuff you can do. If there are not, it might not be time. If there are - or even not that close, give her a call, say you are touching base, and ask her for an honest opinion.
There are two possibilities. First, she will be enthusiastic, but say that there just aren’t any openings. In this case ask her if you can check back with her in a month or a quarter.
Second, she will be a bit distant. In that case she may have showed your resume to the Senior Management and they found something they didn’t like in it. In that case there isn’t much hope.
And of course they will never, ever call you. But I’m sure you knew that.
One more thing - being a smart person isn’t good enough these days. If you understand the business, see if you can come up with an elevator pitch about how you can do things for them that will pay back in multiples of your salary. It might not work for this one, but it is a way of approaching other companies. Even if you run into someone cold, ask what their problems are and see if you can come up with some special skills you have to help them.
Three weeks is a little soon. A month wouldn’t seem like you’re pestering them. But then checking with them every month might annoy them, so I’d go with 6 weeks, unless as Voyager points out, you see actual openings available there. Doing this by email is chancey. It’s easy to ignore, and they may not respond leaving you with no information. I’d call.