The Response Seems to be in Equal Measure to the Guestion: Casual.

My problem with his response is that I am offering him a job interview and he replies with 5 words. No salutation, no thank you, no regards and not even his name at the bottom.

Okay, how about this. Is this better; based on your criteria above:

Dear PagMax,

Thanks for getting back to me! I am really happy to have heard back from you.

Yes I am still interested. Please let me know what the next steps are.

Thanks again for getting back to me, PagMax!

Best,

Someone

Maybe I exaggerated the tone of what you describe, but to me what else can one say—or be expected to say—to a query like this? You asked a simple question and you got a simple answer.

Can I consider this an indicator of him lacking interest and ignore this conversation? Or I am expecting too much considering my original follow-up email was also a one liner with no salutation.

You are definitely expecting too much given the question presented. And to be honest you seem to be playing the horrible game many recruiters, HR people and hiring mangers seem to be playing of over-interpreting every action as if you are in some life or death game of chess with a potential candidate.

Approaching hiring—or recommendations for a hire—this way is instantaneously adversarial and helps nobody. Someone asked you if you could help them find a job. You said yes. And now you are providing them with requested info. Someone who wants a job is asking about a job; they are not trying to trick you into passing along nuclear secrets.

Maybe the Issue is You Are Questioning Your Role in being a “Go Between” Here

And that said, if you are thinking like this I will dig deeper psychologically: You really don’t know this person, you said “Yes!” to help them out of politeness but now that the process is really happening, you have doubts… Meaning you might feel like “Why am I essentially vouching for someone I don’t know?”

If that is the case, at this point I would recommend you state as much to whoever is offering the job you are recommending this person to: Simply state, “Look, I don’t really know who this person is but their skills seem in line with what you want so I passed the info to them. But past that it’s your call whether this is a good fit.”

Situations like this are the reason I rarely explicitly state to someone “I will help you find a job…” because that is just too heavy a responsibility on both sides. I simply keep in touch with people, pass on info if a potential match can happen and then clearly state the reality of my relationship to both sides of the equation.

There are honestly some people straight out of college who think people older than them have some “magic list” of job contacts and they don’t understand otherwise. You have to be honestly but blunt with people like that: “I passed your name on, that’s all I can do and I don’t know what else you want me to say…”

Jobs are jobs. People are people. There is no magical “short cut” to getting hired or hiring the right person. You just have to be clear, honest and persistent.

The Response Seems to be in Equal Measure to the Guestion: Casual

My problem with his response is that I am offering him a job interview and he replies with 5 words. No salutation, no thank you, no regards and not even his name at the bottom.

Okay, how about this. Is this better; based on your criteria above:

Dear PagMax,

Thanks for getting back to me! I am really happy to have heard back from you.

Yes I am still interested. Please let me know what the next steps are.

Thanks again for getting back to me, PagMax!

Best,

Someone

Maybe I exaggerated the tone of what you describe, but to me what else can one say—or be expected to say—to a query like this? You asked a simple question and you got a simple answer.

Can I consider this an indicator of him lacking interest and ignore this conversation? Or I am expecting too much considering my original follow-up email was also a one liner with no salutation.

You are definitely expecting too much given the question presented. And to be honest you seem to be playing the horrible game many recruiters, HR people and hiring mangers seem to be playing of over-interpreting every action as if you are in some life or death game of chess with a potential candidate.

Approaching hiring—or recommendations for a hire—this way is instantaneously adversarial and helps nobody. Someone asked you if you could help them find a job. You said yes. And now you are providing them with requested info. Someone who wants a job is asking about a job; they are not trying to trick you into passing along nuclear secrets.

Maybe the Issue is You Are Questioning Your Role in being a “Go Between” Here

And that said, if you are thinking like this I will dig deeper psychologically: You really don’t know this person, you said “Yes!” to help them out of politeness but now that the process is really happening, you have doubts… Meaning you might feel like “Why am I essentially vouching for someone I don’t know?”

If that is the case, at this point I would recommend you state as much to whoever is offering the job you are recommending this person to: Simply state, “Look, I don’t really know who this person is but their skills seem in line with what you want so I passed the info to them. But past that it’s your call whether this is a good fit.”

Situations like this are the reason I rarely explicitly state to someone “I will help you find a job…” because that is just too heavy a responsibility on both sides. I simply keep in touch with people, pass on info if a potential match can happen and then clearly state the reality of my relationship to both sides of the equation.

There are honestly some people straight out of college who think people older than them have some “magic list” of job contacts and they don’t understand otherwise. You have to be honestly but blunt with people like that: “I passed your name on, that’s all I can do and I don’t know what else you want me to say…”

Jobs are jobs. People are people. There is no magical “short cut” to getting hired or hiring the right person. You just have to be clear, honest and persistent.

My problem with his response is that I am offering him a job interview and he replies with 5 words. No salutation, no thank you, no regards and not even his name at the bottom.

Okay, how about this. Is this better; based on your criteria above:

Dear PagMax,

Thanks for getting back to me! I am really happy to have heard back from you.

Yes I am still interested. Please let me know what the next steps are.

Thanks again for getting back to me, PagMax!

Best,

Someone

Maybe I exaggerated the tone of what you describe, but to me what else can one say—or be expected to say—to a query like this? You asked a simple question and you got a simple answer.

Can I consider this an indicator of him lacking interest and ignore this conversation? Or I am expecting too much considering my original follow-up email was also a one liner with no salutation.

You are definitely expecting too much given the question presented. And to be honest you seem to be playing the horrible game many recruiters, HR people and hiring mangers seem to be playing of over-interpreting every action as if you are in some life or death game of chess with a potential candidate.

Approaching hiring—or recommendations for a hire—this way is instantaneously adversarial and helps nobody. Someone asked you if you could help them find a job. You said yes. And now you are providing them with requested info. Someone who wants a job is asking about a job; they are not trying to trick you into passing along nuclear secrets.

And that said, if you are thinking like this I will dig deeper psychologically: You really don’t know this person, said “Yes!” to help them out of politeness but now that the process is really happening, you have doubts… Meaning you might feel like “Why am I essentially vouching for someone I don’t know?”

If that is the case, at this point I would recommend you state as much to whoever is offering the job you are recommending this person to: Simply state, “Look, I don’t really know who this person is but their skills seem in line with what you want so I passed the info to them. But past that it’s your call whether this is a good fit.”

Situations like this is the reason I rarely explicitly state to someone “I will help you find a job…” because that is just too heavy a responsibility on both sides. I simply keep in touch with people, pass on info if a potential match can happen and then clearly state the reality of my relationship to both sides of the equation.

There are honestly some people straight out of college who think people older than them have some “magic list” of job contacts and they don’t understand otherwise. You have to be honestly but blunt with people like that: “I passed your name on, that’s all I can do and I don’t know what else you want me to say…”

Jobs are jobs. People are people. There is no magical “short cut” to getting hired or hiring the right person. You just have to be clear, honest and persistent.

The Response Seems to be in Equal Measure to the Guestion: Casual.

My problem with his response is that I am offering him a job interview and he replies with 5 words. No salutation, no thank you, no regards and not even his name at the bottom.

Okay, how about this. Is this better; based on your criteria above:

Dear PagMax,

Thanks for getting back to me! I am really happy to have heard back from you.

Yes I am still interested. Please let me know what the next steps are.

Thanks again for getting back to me, PagMax!

Best,

Someone

Maybe I exaggerated the tone of what you describe, but to me what else can one say—or be expected to say—to a query like this? You asked a simple question and you got a simple answer.

Can I consider this an indicator of him lacking interest and ignore this conversation? Or I am expecting too much considering my original follow-up email was also a one liner with no salutation.

You are definitely expecting too much given the question presented. And to be honest you seem to be playing the horrible game many recruiters, HR people and hiring mangers seem to be playing of over-interpreting every action as if you are in some life or death game of chess with a potential candidate.

Approaching hiring—or recommendations for a hire—this way is instantaneously adversarial and helps nobody. Someone asked you if you could help them find a job. You said yes. And now you are providing them with requested info. Someone who wants a job is asking about a job; they are not trying to trick you into passing along nuclear secrets.

Maybe the Issue is You Are Questioning Your Role in being a “Go Between” Here

And that said, if you are thinking like this I will dig deeper psychologically: You really don’t know this person, you said “Yes!” to help them out of politeness but now that the process is really happening, you have doubts… Meaning you might feel like “Why am I essentially vouching for someone I don’t know?”

If that is the case, at this point I would recommend you state as much to whoever is offering the job you are recommending this person to: Simply state, “Look, I don’t really know who this person is but their skills seem in line with what you want so I passed the info to them. But past that it’s your call whether this is a good fit.”

Situations like this are the reason I rarely explicitly state to someone “I will help you find a job…” because that is just too heavy a responsibility on both sides. I simply keep in touch with people, pass on info if a potential match can happen and then clearly state the reality of my relationship to both sides of the equation.

There are honestly some people straight out of college who think people older than them have some “magic list” of job contacts and they don’t understand otherwise. You have to be honestly but blunt with people like that: “I passed your name on, that’s all I can do and I don’t know what else you want me to say…”

Jobs are jobs. People are people. There is no magical “short cut” to getting hired or hiring the right person. You just have to be clear, honest and persistent.