Heather Krasna, PhD & Associates

I think it’s fair to follow up a few days after you apply to a job to ask a few questions and elaborate on your excitement and interest in the job. This is one of the main things you can do to get the hiring manager to give your resume a second look. You can usually identify the name of a person to contact if you do enough sleuthing on Linkedin, the organization directory, Google, etc. You have to be very respectful of the person’s time and know that they might not be able to speak with you if there are policies in place that make this a conflict of interest if you are actively being considered for the job. If you do reach someone, and they agree to speak with you, some things you could ask are:
* How did the position become available?
* What are the organization’s biggest challenges right now and how does this position help solve them?
* What are they looking for in the perfect candidate?
* Do they know what their timeframe looks like for the hiring process?
* Would it be too forward of you to link to them on Linkedin, so they can see all of your recommendations?
* If you had to submit your resume as a plain text document, could you email them your well-formatted resume version?
* Can you send them any supplemental documents, like work samples that are relevant to the job?