For obvious reasons, firms are inundated with unsolicited resumes these days - plus, most firms are shorthanded. Assertive behavior by candidates is a sure bet to cause irritation at many firms, especially when the firm hasn't been advertising for candidates.

If you must follow-up, do so very politely by phone or e-mail - and don't be surprised (or offended) if the firm seems annoyed by, or indifferent to, your inquiry. Most firms have real problems these days and tending to unsolicited credential packages isn't necessarily at the top of their priority list.

I agree, in an unsolicited situation, a firm will probably hesitate to respond, if they respond at all.

But what about a firm that advertised a job opening? Would it be rude to pursue that? And does that show initiative, or is it just plane annoying?

IMO, if a firm advertises a vacancy, or otherwise makes it known that they're hiring, then that firm has a moral obligation to respond when credentials are submitted. If such a response is not timely, I think the candidate has every right to follow-up in a professional manner and not receive rude treatment when doing so.

quizzical, if only that were true. I can't even get offices to return an email or a phone call after I interviewed there... twice!

seriously? that's so rude.

could it be that they're just taking their time making a decision?

It's true, I wonder if architecture majors should learn a thing or two about being more professional business men and women. Because when an office says they got my resume and that they'll call me back, and I don't get a call, I feel it makes them look bad as a business.

I agree. I've found out on more than one occasion that I didn't get the job I interviewed for from LinkedIn, not from the office. I realize that offices are just overwhelmed with applicants and they can't respond to everybody, but if you took the time to contact me about my resume, I assume that I am one of few that you are interested in and the least you could do is respond to my email. In general, I feel like offices have used the recession as an excuse for poor HR.

Just to further this, I've also responded to posted ads only to find out that really what they advertised for was not actually what they were hiring for and they were either too lazy or willfully intending to hire a senior person for a lower position (and salary), so they just reused an old ad that had no relevance to their actual needs.

I could literally write a book about the experiences I have had with applications, interviews and the general unemployment experience. I wonder what book deals pay these days?

My office posted an ad last month...there were almost 300 resume's submitted (depressing, I know).

As resumes started to come in via e-mail, we kept them all. As the numbers rose, we had to start using a triage system, opening only the resume (not the portfolio), and if the person didn't at least come close to meeting the criteria we'd posted, it was just deleted. We were left with between 100-150 submissions.

The second round of triage for the remaining candidates was to look at portfolios and make quick decisions on whether they went in the yes folder, or were deleted. This left us with 30 submissions.

For these last 30, a good amount of time was spent looking in detail at resumes and portfolios, and we narrowed it down to 12 likely candidates, and in the end interviewed 6 and hired 1.

This process is kind of brutal, but given the huge volume of resumes coming in its necessary, and it is not feasible to acknowledge the submissions or confirm that they'd been received. In hindsight, we should have stated in the ad that we would not be replying to submissions.

Even though the ad said 'no calls please,' a number of people called...no harm in it, but there's no way we were going to stop what we were doing, find that person's resume (assuming it hadn't been deleted), and give it a fresh look or update the caller. To be honest, since we'd deleted 150-200 submissions, I couldn't even confirm that a submission had been received. So we politely thanked callers for sending their stuff in, told them there had been a very large number of resumes submitted, that we were reviewing them, and that if we were interested we would call to arrange an interview.

So the calls were totally ineffective.

Someday, when the economy is not a wreck, you should definitely follow up with a call. It's a whole different ball game when you have 20 resumes submitted rather than 300. With 20 submissions, I'd definitely take a look at your resume again if you called.

Let's hope these days come soon.

itsnotme! - I think what you have described is fair and pretty representative of what most offices are doing. It's a horrible market to be an applicant and to expect that offices can reply to every applicant is unreasonable. I've even come to find that an auto-response is pretty great, even though I know that it doesn't mean that someone looked at the application, but at least I know it did make it from my email to their email.

Thanks for the informative post, itsnotme.

Your blow-by-blow description sounds like a pretty logical (if unfortunately abbreviated) process in the face of so many applicants.

The phone call conundrum is always a little risky, since different people can respond in wildly different ways to even the most polite query.

It's 100% possible given the position and who it is with and I understand that it does take time. I guess my consternation is just that I don't even get a simple 5 minute phone call to tell me as much. That's all I want is a little follow-up, especially since I called them and took the initiate. No one is so busy they can't call the 3 people they interviewed and update them on the status of the position.

: a recommendation

You took the trouble to review every submittal received, conducted triage, etc. Before deleting those submittals you found unsuited to your needs, would it not have been a very simple matter to hit the reply button for each, insert a simple, brief boilerplate note, thanking the candidate for the submittal, explaining your review process, and stating politely that you felt the candidate's qualifications were not appropriate to your needs. Takes about 30 seconds per candidate.

As it is now, you have about 294 upset candidates who feel they just wasted their time responding to your ad - that can't be positive PR for your firm.

It seems to me we make a bargain when we advertise a job opening - if you take the time to send in your qualifications, we'll take the time to review what you send and give you some indication of our interest, or not.

It's not very hard to live up to this bargain.

The best, and probably most courteous way, of getting a firms attention is to simply e-mail them.

Make a few inquiries:

1) Do you have a brochure I can see?
2) What size is your office (number of employees and square footage)?
3) What projects interest your firm most and which firms are you particularly proud of?

And... if you can pry it from their cold dead hands:

4) What was your last year's gross revenue?

They should answer #1 and #3 with no fuss. No. 2 will be a little harder-- firms are hesitant of revealing those numbers... especially office square footage. However, you can always call their property manager, landlord or contact the DOB.

And #4, well... a firm will only brag if their gross revenue is amazing. If their revenue is amazing, they're more than likely hiring or can hire.

With No. 2, you can get both an indicator of if they can hire and how vacant their office is. Some firms however have their employees work like sweatshop workers at lunch room tables (aka the employees sit exactly 3' apart in line.)

A large mostly vacant office with little staff-- confirmed by building blueprints-- is likely not hiring.

In addition, their project list should list at least $7,500,000 worth of projects for every employee (that should give a gross revenue of $150,000 worth of billings at a 2% of project cost). If their project log is on the slim side, they won't have the revenue to hire anyone. However, deducing their office revenue only works if you have an exact number of employees and they update their website frequently.

quizzical - that could be even be reduced to an automatically generated response. Something like:

"Dear Applicant

Thank you for your interested in our firm. Due to the large volume of applications we have received, it is unfeasible for us to contact each applicant directly, but we do sincerely appreciate your interest and will review each and every application that we receive. We will contact only the applicants we are interested in interviewing via phone or email; If you do not hear from us it is because we have decided to move forward with other applicants who we feel are a better fit for the position and our office. PLEASE NO PHONE CALLS.

We do realize that it is a difficult time in the economy and we wish you the best of wishes in your job hunting endeavors.

Sincerely,

Office."

I would say that 7 out of 10 phone calls I have made to verify they received my resume and cover letter were positive. I think the smaller an office is for some reason the receptionist was more rude. a couple of months ago, just out of nowhere, SOM emailed me requesting hard copies of my work samples, or PDF files, I sent them hardcopies, they never got back to me so, I called and left a message 3 weeks later, they then emailed me saying that they have received my information. Sometimes we have to call but i keep it short and simple. Just calling to verify that my resume and cover letter were received. Thank you have a good day.

Communication is discouraged in this field. Good luck!

...on the one hand, a boilerplate reply would have been nice, but even using your math, 300 resumes with a 30 second reply for each, is 150 minutes...that's 2 1/2 hours. It's a cold hearted calculation, but that time needs to be spent designing or documenting our current work, or even better, generating new work.

I'm also concerned that of the 300 replies, some fraction of applicants would see it as an opportunity to start a discussion/make a good impression. In a 'normal' economy I'd have no problem with that, but the auto reply turn into 30 e-mail conversations would be even more time consuming.

I should have made it clear in the ad that we wouldn't be confirming receipt of resumes. We'll do this next time.

If I have some free time soon, I'm going to write a do and don't post for submitting a resume...sort of a compliment to the architect feature. It's amazing how many applicants did things that didn't put them in the best light.

It really depends on the firm and the person in charge of hiring at that firm.

TheMasterBuilder: If the firm you sent your resume to mentioned that they would call you back and you have not heard from them, I would just give them a call to follow up. Nowadays most of the firms are really shorthanded and sometimes people are just bogged down by getting design done and acquiring new projects...etc.

But if it is a firm that you have emailed them your resume to and you have not heard a word, I would start with an email first rather than calling. You may not be guaranteed a response from them this way but I think it does increase your chance of getting a response from them.

And always, be courteous when you email/call. Don't just assume that it's the receptionist that is answering your call.

I'm just being snide, but if everyone is too busy to respond to emails, maybe it's time to hire more people.

Strawbeary -- I think itsnotme! confirmed your point.

"Don't just assume that it's the receptionist that is answering your call."

If a firm has more than 10 employees and no receptionist... it's a sign of a place where you do not want to work.

I think the one-way street of communication that is transpiring between applicants and employers is not specific to the architecture industry. I know several people outside of the design arena who are complaining about the same thing and the reality is there isn't much you can do. Offices are understaffed and uncomfortable bringing on new employees for fear they will have to let them go within months.

My guess is that aside from the flood of resumes most receptionists are getting on a daily basis, they are probably also finding themselves having to cover some of the work that a (as yet unhired) intern might do. I know at my last office, it was not uncommon for the receptionist to format specification manuals, archive non-current projects, assemble submittals to consultants, put together presentation and color/material boards... all of which was in addition to answering phones, running errands, getting office supplies, etc.

All in all, it is disappointing the level of professionalism some offices are employing these days but that is the state of affairs and it's unlikely to change soon. I'm taking the call once-a-month tactic for offices that interviewed and then vanished. At some point I figure I will get a poorly written rejection letter in the mail.