What is the professional way to follow up with a manager for project opportunity?

Question

I am working for an outsourcing IT organization. My project contract was recently ended and I was put on bench. I have a discussion with marketing manager, who markets my profile and finds out project opportunity suitable for my skill set and profile about my project opportunities. And I have talked with my previous project manager for project opportunities within their project or the projects they know what requirements are there.

It has been long time and I didn't hear anything from them. Now, how can I follow up with them professionally through Email?

Meeting personally is not good option as it is very tough to get their time as they are busy with their projects. So I have to use Email to follow up.

Answer 1

Since you are pursuing new opportunities within your organization, it is similar to interviewing for a new position outside of your organization.

In that regard, I would use a cover letter in order to differentiate yourself by demonstrating you bring more to the job, highlight your experience, leverage your domain expertise.

My favorite cover letter style is the one presented in the book Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters.

I found a description of how to write such letters in this article. There are also some samples there.

The layout of your e-mail message could leverage some of the elements below:

1. The opening

   • Include your name and address, the date, employer's designation and address, salutation and subject.
2. Introduction
   • Nominate the job for which you are applying for.
   • Indicate the source and date of the job information.
   • Mention briefly your qualifications
   • Indicate your interest, career objective or goal.
3. Sales pitch
   • Highlight the extent to which you match the requirements of the job.
   • State your relevant experience gained from industrial attachments, projects, vacation or part-time jobs.
   • Give a brief summary of your educational achievements, experience, qualities, capabilities and skills.
   • Outline any further points in your favour related to the job and mention the attached resume.
   • Mention your interest in the organisation and your reason for applying for that particular position.
4. Request for further action
   • Write that you look forward to a call or letter.
   • State your availability for interview.
   • Thank the person for his or her time and consideration.
5. The complimentary close
   • Remember to sign personally and include your name. State your enclosures such as your attached resume, academic results or references.

Answer 2

Although you're asking specifically about following up here I think your have a much broader issue facing you that you'll need to deal with. You taking the initiate to follow up is great, but if your outsourcing company isn't putting out the effort to find your next engagement you have bigger fish to fry.

First off you don't indicate if you are in a contract role (i.e. no pay while on the bench) or in staff role (i.e. paid bench time). The distinction is fairly important because it does effect how your company approaches placing you.

Obviously if you're in a staff role and being paid for your downtime the company has made an investment in your career, so they are more apt to quickly place you in another project or use your skills for other task such as interviewing, assisting with prospects that fit your technical knowledge, or evaluating potential projects.

If you're purely a contractor then obviously you're losing money while on the bench. And although your employer isn't making its cut they certainly aren't shelling out cash for you to sit around the house.

Many consulting companies are well known for promising the moon as far as their need for your skills; not only on the current project but on future projects as well. Despite these promises a great deal of those companies are only concerned about the current project or requisition, regardless of what they've told you in the past.

If they are not putting out the effort to place you then they are clearly indicating that they either don't have a need for your skills, are not satisfied with your history/performance, or are simply being short sighted. If they really wanted to keep you in the stable you'd be hearing from them every other day or so even if it was only to say they haven't found anything yet.

Either way I'd suggest you start looking at other outsourcing companies to partner with. When doing that I'd ask specifically about the average bench time for their stable.

Although I'm sure this isn't current I've read before that a 30% bench/down time is very common for consultants. While my experience with one company in particular was less then 1% bench/down time over the course of seven years.

Obviously your mileage will vary.