Now you must speak to a potential employer on the phone or in person during a meeting or interview. That's what this article is all about: making contact in person.
Just remember the terms you stated in your letter, and remember that one of the primary reasons your reader will be willing to meet with you is that you are looking for a job.
The Phone Call
The first challenge is the phone call. Suppose you've sent off a dozen fantastic letters and are now making the follow up calls to arrange meetings. Don't simply pick up the phone and ask to speak to Mr. Eyelet, your contact. Prepare for the call.
Before you make your first call, it's a good idea to have a copy of your letter in front of you just in case you need to refer to it or reinforce some important fact. It is very likely that your reader will not recall getting your letter.
Another item essential to good calling is a calendar. If you are successful in convincing the person at the end of the line that you're worth calling, be ready to make an appointment! You'd be surprised at the number of people who get to the final stages of the calling process and are then unable to commit to a date. (Having a calendar handy doesn't hurt your image as a well organized professional, either.)
Be sure as well to have a copy of your resume close at hand. When under pressure, you'll sometimes forget the most important details of your background. With this in mind, you may want to write yourself an outline for the call.
"Oh No!" you may think, "Not a Script!" No; don't write out a word for word recitation to be delivered in a flat monotone. Jot down some of the key points you'd like to cover in the call, bearing in mind that the phone calls you make should be brief ones. Your intention is to establish friendly contact, get the contact to acknowledge receipt of your letter, make an appointment, and then get off the line. Such a conversation need not last more than three or four minutes.
Now: On to the dynamics of the call itself. Your contact may see the call as an opportunity to screen your qualifications. If he or she can uncover unacceptable elements in your background or presentation, it will be possible to save the time it would take to talk to you in person. This must be avoided at all costs. It is easy to forget someone you've spoken to on the phone; it's much harder to forget someone you've seen in person. If you sense that you are being screened, you must tactfully emphasize the fact that you can only do justice to your qualifications in person, and then ask to meet. If the person insists on reviewing your qualifications, at least you'll be prepared to talk intelligently your letter and resume will be right in front of you.
The Secretary
Actually, there are usually two people you will have to deal with for each call you make. One, of course, is the contact; the other is the person who's been hired to keep you from getting through!
The contact's secretary or assistant will, alas, often try to screen calls. You must develop a strategy for getting around these people. And here's the real challenge: you must do so without making an enemy!
How many times has that happened to you? You know the story. If you leave your message, you'll never get are turn phone call; if you persist by calling again and again, you run the risk of alienating both Mr. Nibs, the secretary, and Ms. Tyman, the boss.
There are two obvious (and time tested) approaches you can take. First, you can try asking when a good time to callback might be. Sometimes the secretary will tell you when the meeting (if there really is one) should be over. With any luck, you can either force the secretary to pinpoint a time when the boss will be available or give you some clue as to whether or not you're getting a snow job.
Another strategy is to call when the secretary is not likely to be around. If you call just before or after regular business hours or during lunch you may get the boss directly. (Many salespeople sidestep the "secretary problem" by focusing their calling hours during the periods before 9 a.m. and after 5 p.m.)
Suppose, though, that you reach a secretary who is willing to acknowledge the contact's presence in the office but unwilling to let you through until you clearly establish yourself as a Person Who Will Not Waste the Boss's Time.
Now what? If you say that you're calling to get information about careers and/or specific job openings, you'll be catapulted into the dusky limbo of eternal hold. If you make up some "little white lie" (i.e., "It's his sister in law Abigail") you'll probably end up embarrassing yourself in front of the secretary and the contact and running a pretty good chance of permanently destroying your chances for employment at the firm. The simplest way to parry this question is to respond with something like this:
This way you are being pleasant to the secretary, telling the truth, and ensuring that your intentions are not given away to the wrong person.
Ugh! The stakes get higher! Your best bet now is to take a deep breath and ask yourself honestly whether or not you consider your job search something personal in nature. Sure you do.
With a bit of luck, you've managed to change the secretary's underlying question from "Who is this?" to "Oh, my God, someone's come down with rickets; why am I giving this person such a hard time?" The average secretary will not run the risk of offending a friend of the boss's or prying into personal business. (But beware: if this technique works, be ready for a somewhat puzzled first few seconds when the boss picks up the phone after having been paged for a "personal" call.)
At some point during that elaborate phone dance ritual with the secretary, you will have (one hopes) gotten through to the boss. What do you say now?
