When to follow up with recruiters

Question

I have a question about the timeline of following up with potential employers when they don't initially respond.

I received a call from a Big 4 recruiter and we had a good discussion so they decide to pass me to the regional recruiter who would reach out about interviews.

I received an email asking me to apply but no one else reached out, as I had expected.

I emailed the original recruiter to ask if I should apply or wait for someone to reach out first but received no answer. How long should I wait before I send a follow up email? I don't want to apply and find out I should have talked specifics with the regional recruiter first, BUT also don't want to annoy anyone by sending follow up too soon!

THANKS!

Answer 1

Hi there,

First of all, congratulations on being invited to the interviews!

This is indeed an interesting question which is probably relevant for quite a lot of users, so I am happy to provide my perspective on it:

Generally speaking, I would advise you to contact the person ultimately responsible for you as a candidate, i.e. in this specific situation the regional recruiter. When you were directed to another person, you can assume the recruiter you had the initial call with will not want to have too much to do with your matter anymore.
As such, I would advise you to wait for about 2 weeks to have your application processed. If, however, you will not hear back from the regional recruiter after 2.5-3 weeks, I would call the regional recruiter and very politely ask about the status of your application.

In case you want a more detailed discussion on how to best prepare for your upcoming interviews, please feel free to contact me directly.

I hope this helps,

Hagen

Answer 2

Hi there,

My view is, if you've already waited a week or two, you should apply with the link they provided.

If you'd like to send a followup beforehand (and have time), then 1-2 weeks is a fair enough time period to wait.

That said, my question is why do you need to hear back from them? They want you to apply to that office and gave you a link - not sure what you need to hear from them! Just make sure there's a valid reason for this (i.e. talking about what specific role to apply to).

Answer 3

Hi anonymous,

Unfortunately HR processes have so many flaws. At Big4 is even more complicated than in MBBs and Tier2 because they receive sooooo many applications…

So my advice is that if you tried to reach out to the local recruiter and received no answer, then you should apply using the link you received because that is the process where you are in right now.

There's a chance the email you received came from the regional recruiting and that they expect you to apply through there.

In any case after applying through that email reach out to the local recruiter again and explain the situation.

Good luck!

Answer 4

Hi!

I think you should apply online.

Good luck,

Anto