How Do I Stay I Contact With My References During A Long Job Search

 

Q. References are important. How do you stay in contact with them?

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So the question is, “My job search is going to be a long one. How do I stay in contact with my references?”

This is an interesting question. So much of it reveals a lack of confidence on the part of the job hunter.

Now we don’t know what a long job search is to this job hunter but let’s accept this on face value. They know is going to be a long job search because they are a beginner or perhaps have antiquated skills that make them less marketable.

So first of all you’re going to need to do work to prevent this from being a long job search. There are skills you will need to learn or relearn in order to avoid it from taking as long as you fear. After all, you don’t want to be like a feather in the wind blowing from place to place. You want to be someone who is desirable marketable and is in command of your situation.

The next step is to stay in contact with your references on a limited basis, not an abusive basis. You write what seems to be a personal note instead of a BCC or bulk copy to a lot of people. Instead, copy and paste an individual message to individual people. It can be the same message but give the illusion that it is a personal individual message.

The subject line can read something like, “status update.”

The body of the message could read something like, “I’m not at a point in my search where I feel like I’m close to anything. I thought I would just ask you to keep this in your mind and if you hear about something that makes sense for me, reach out and let me know about it or give the recruiter my contact information to reach out to me directly.”

Send a note to them every 4 to 6 weeks – – that’s fine. You have to mention who your interviewing with of the number of firms you spoken with unless, of course, the person you’re writing to has contacts there or is a former employee.

Tell them you’re not at the point where you think you’re getting an offer but just wanted to stay in touch with them so that in case they do their of something they should feel free to reach out to you

 

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Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

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