I've read that it's good to indicate a follow up in your cover letter. A line like this, in the last paragraph: "I will contact you in the upcoming 2 weeks to see if you need further information." I wanted to get a second opinion on this. Does that seem like a good idea, especially to someplace that seems hard to contact (phone number impossible to find, never picks up anyways)? Do the hiring managers at game companies expect a phone call later from the people emailing in resumes? Is it one of those, "It can't hurt to have," lines?

Sounds tacky as hell to me. Just follow up when the time comes.

I usually leave the ball in their park by using something equally tacky, like: "I look forward to discussing this opportunity further, at your convenience"...

The answer is "no".

In the past the reason to call was to verify that the application arrived in the mail.




The only reason to do it these is if you actually know the human beings involved (their actual name and phone number), and actually know that they want you to call, and you actually DO call when you say you will.


However, if they are a small business or family business with 1-5 workers, and you believe there is a very good chance the application can get lost in their cluttered daily workload (which means you have inside details about the company) then in that very rare situation it can be a good thing.


I've only worked at one company where it was a good thing to follow up. Ty (the lead programmer out of 4 people) printed out and then lost all the job applications. Then his HDD crashed. One person called a few days later for a follow up, was interviewed, and hired. Of course that was 14 years ago when following up was more of a common practice.


I would highly recommend AGAINST it, unless you have a lot of inside information.

You can say it. And you can send another email 2 weeks later. It won't hurt you. But it probably won't help either.

HOWEVER, if you say it but then you don't follow up with another email 2 weeks later, that counts against you.

Alright, thanks for the information.

I already sent some applications like this; I guess I'll call them back now!

It's weird how much of the resume/cover letter advice that you get taught at school, or read about, don't actually apply (at least to this industry).

You mean they actually told you in school to indicate in a cover letter that you would contact a company again in two weeks?

You should never put this in a cover letter. There is nothing wrong with calling or emailing people after a couple of weeks if they haven't contacted you but, to indicate it in a cover letter is rude.

It gives the impession that you are going to chase them up if they don't return your correspondence on your terms when in fact they probably have their own system in place for replying to applications. It also gives the impresion that you expect them to give up their time to consider your application (of course you do expect them to consider you but you should never word your application as if you assume they will).

Quote: Original post by Buster2000
It gives the impession that you are going to chase them up if they don't return your correspondence on your terms when in fact they probably have their own system in place for replying to applications.

Exactly. Unless you have actual knowledge of their internal processes and how long it will take them to process the hundreds of applicants who submit a resume then it is rude to try and set a deadline. I once advertised for 7 positions and had over 400 applications. It took my assistant and I over three weeks to respond to them all (we had our normal workload to cope with at the same time).

Blah. Yeah, I always thought it seemed like an iffy idea, but I thought, "well, all these career advice professionals can't be wrong, can they?" My university told me to do this, as well as all the online resources I could find.

Here's the very first Google result. At the top, under "All cover letters should:", It says to do exactly that. There's ton more like it. :( I thought I was doing myself a service by doing extra research, but it had quite the opposite effect. I should have asked you guys sooner!

I guess those resources are oriented more towards the industries where it's an obvious yes/no for picking who to interview. There are probably more variables to consider with applicants in the software and entertainment industries.

Quote: Original post by Swarmer
I guess those resources are oriented more towards the industries where it's an obvious yes/no for picking who to interview. There are probably more variables to consider with applicants in the software and entertainment industries.

They may also be intended for industries where HR does/can manage the entire hiring process. The HR department specialises in this sort of thing, and their turn-around time on applications and returning phone calls tend to be extremely quick.

If an engineer/programmer is handling the screening and interview process, expect things to be a little less streamlined, as they still have their regular job to perform.