5

I found some opening positions in a professional magazine, and I submitted my applications online. At the end of the position introduction on the magazine, there is a contact person, with email addresses.

Should I also send a confirmation email to this person saying that I have submitted whatever position online and let them know this fact? Or should I just trust the online system and hope that my application won't be filtered out?

Improve this question
5
  • 3
    Hi alittleboy, welcome to the Workplace SE. You should have a look at this question, Should I email the recruiter with my resume instead of applying online?, and see if any answers there help you out. If not, you could edit this post and add more details that might help clarify and differentiate your problem. Good luck, and welcome to the Workplace! :)
    – jmort253
    Dec 12, 2012 at 7:00
  • 2
    You're welcome! Again, let us know either way if that answers your question or not, as we may close/link this as a dup of the other question.
    – jmort253
    Dec 12, 2012 at 14:35
  • 1
    @jmort253: thanks! that answers my question, so please close this question :)
    – alittleboy
    Dec 13, 2012 at 3:14
  • If you have any more questions, this search page has some tips on how to search our site by both keywords as well as tags. Again, welcome, and hope to see you around our site! :)
    – jmort253
    Dec 13, 2012 at 3:38
  • 1
    One of the other moderators suggested we leave your question open since it is slightly different, just in case someone else has something to add that applies here. Hope this helps.
    – jmort253
    Dec 13, 2012 at 3:58

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

I disagree with this answer.

Or should I just trust the online system and hope that my application won't be filtered out?

As much as you like to think organizations "must have stuff working" - if you really want a job are you willing to gamble based on this?

I have been astounded on the number of organizations which have online forms/applications/submissions which "should work" but result in all sorts of problems. Maybe the system works but gets overloaded. Maybe the system only works certain times of the day for some reason. Maybe the system is just buggy from your ISP. Who knows.

A key point from the question is the listing of contact information. Why put that there? So people can contact whomever it is.

What I would recommend is a slightly different strategy for this situation:

  1. Email the contact with some questions about the job (you do have questions, right?) which can be answered (yet are not in the article!) and are meaningful questions.
  2. Dialogue briefly with this person. Make sure to make your interest and intent to apply known.
  3. Actually apply online.
  4. After a short while, reply to the contact, "Hey just wanted to let you know I've applied - can you confirm you received my application?"

This not only gives you confirmation you have applied successfully but also gives you some bonus networking points with the contact person, because it shows you have serious interest in the position and are willing to research it before just dropping an application off.

Improve this answer
2
  • On the other hand, if the organization doesn't have its stuff working, that's a good filter for candidates to weed out companies.
    – Blrfl
    Feb 4, 2013 at 13:17
  • @Blrfl - even if company does not have its stuff working, you may want job there. Ie, fix that stuff :-)
    – Peter M. - stands for Monica
    Apr 22, 2014 at 0:10
4

Since you have mentioned it is a professional magazine, I would assume that they do have a system in place to check all the applications submitted online (otherwise they would not have built the online interface in the first place). So you should not send another email immediately or on the same day but trust the online system and wait.

Some organizations, do send automated emails that they have received your online application giving more details on the next steps, so please keep checking your email.

Please wait for one or a max two weeks and in case you do not get any response (a call or an automated email or any email from an actual person), I would check in the website if there is any detail mentioned to check the status of your online application. If no details are provided, then I would send an email to the contact you had found while submitting the online application.

Please ensure that the email you send does not sound desperate that you are looking for work, but gently checking with the contact to know the status of your online application.

Improve this answer
3
  • thank you for your suggestions! The magazine only introduces open positions from different companies, and for each company, I need to search the relevant position and apply online. Each company has a formal application system, which after my application, will send me a confirmation Email. My question is that, I am afraid that the contact person may not see my application due to some automatic online system's filtering, so not sure if I need to send out an Email to the actual person :)
    – alittleboy
    Dec 13, 2012 at 21:24
  • 1
    @alittleboy - You will never know what filters the automatic online system uses. So to increase the chances of your application getting selected by the online system, you need to use as many relevant keywords as possible in your online application. Please use the job description to figure out the keywords. Some online applications will have a separate text line to enter relevant keywords. Please use this effectively. For e.g. if I were applying to a Java programmer position, here are some of the keywords I would use in my online application: j2ee, javascript, html, css, jsp, servlet, ejb etc.
    – seeknew
    Dec 14, 2012 at 2:49
  • thanks a lot for the suggestions and example! I think I include them in my cover letter and CV, so hopefully my application can be seen by the recruiter :)
    – alittleboy
    Dec 14, 2012 at 6:21

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .