Jonathan Rick, a social media strategist in Arlington, Va, blogs at No Straw Men and tweets at @jrick.

Photo courtesy: Pink Moose

A guest post by Jonathan Rick.

In the current edition of her e-newsletter, Claire Kittle, who runs the Talent Market staffing agency, recounts an anecdote that immediately rang true for me. With Claire’s permission, I’m reprinting the story, which I’ve edited slightly.

“I get dozens of applications every day, and you would be amazed to see how many seemingly intelligent candidates do not follow instructions. If I had to put a number on it, I’d estimate that 50% of applicants fail to send me what my clients request.

I used to give all candidates the benefit of the doubt. I would follow-up with them and ask for the information they neglected to send the first time. But I learned that those same candidates often still fail to follow instructions on the second (and third!) attempts, and worse—they frequently get belligerent about being asked for more information!

Here’s a sample scenario:

Me: “Are you free for a phone interview Friday at noon? If so, what’s the best number where I can call you?”

Candidate: “Yes, that will work!”

Sigh. Now I’ll only throw the life preserver to candidates with very strong resumes, but I still file away the fact they didn’t send the right information off the bat.

All this prompts the question: If a candidate can’t follow instructions for a job application, how will that person perform on the job? Will he take direction? Will his work be sloppy? How will he treat your customers? It’s hard to say for sure, but the initial data points don’t bode well for his future as an employee.”

Indeed, although I don’t work in HR, I encounter this bugbear routinely. A recent example:

Vendor: “Please provide profile details.”

Me: “Can you let me know if you can’t get this info from the document I sent this morning?”

The vendor’s response? Silence. Apparently, she could; it was just easier to ask someone than to find a previous e-mail herself.

I learned this passive-aggressive technique from an old boss. Rather than explicitly point out a mistake I had made, he would take the mistake to its logical conclusion. For example, if I wrote that a campaign would run from April-March (rather than March-April), he might reply, “When did our month-long budget get extended to a year?” While my first reaction was, Huh?, upon reflection I appreciated the humor—and gentle guidance.

So, what can we do to minimize these miscommunications? While people will always and forever be lazy, the principles of Web writing suggest separating out anything crucial from the body text. To wit: Any questions or requests should be put in (1) list (2) format, or  at least be bolded or highlighted. The extra time this takes upfront will save you from wasting time down the road.

Jonathan Rick is a social media strategist living in Arlington, VA. He blogs at No Straw Men and tweets at @jrick.

Photo credit: Richard Masoner

This is a guest post by Jonathan Rick.

If ever you've interviewed for a job you didn′t get, no doubt you've bumped into this unpleasant experience.

You interview, you send a follow-up letter"”maybe even with some writing samples or references"”and then you wait. A week or so goes by, and you check in, yet hear nothing. Another week passes, and your frustration mounts.

If you're lucky, eventually you receive a form letter that the position has been filled.

Excuse me, but what the fuck?

If two parties take the time to schedule and meet for an interview"”in addition to conducting any background research"”doesn′t common courtesy demand acknowledging subsequent communications? Is it that burdensome to respond with boilerplate such as, "We'll let you know if we decide to move forward"? Keeping people in limbo is just plain rude.

So what to do? A recruiter might advise you to keep your chin up and plug along. E-mails being ignored? Pick up the phone. Calls going to voice mail? Leave a message with an assistant.

Let me suggest an alternative. If a prospective employer refuses to give you the time of day, then check that company off your list.

Too often, we strain to craft the polite but pointed e-mail. "Just want to make sure you have everything you need?" "Was wondering if I should plan to uncork a champagne bottle this weekend?" "Thought I′d touch base"¦"

Instead, spurned job seekers would do better to take their talents elsewhere. Just because prospective employers tend to have the upper hand doesn't mean they should abuse it. And just because prospective employees need jobs doesn't mean they should let themselves be taken for granted.

Granted, many job seekers do not enjoy the luxury of being so choosy, especially when the unemployment rate stands at 9.8%

. Yet this advice not only serves your self-respect; it's also practical, grounded in the experience that if a company is interested in you, it will get back to you, usually promptly. When that doesn't happen, rarely does  following-up change minds.

Jonathan Rick supports clients across the federal government on the strategy and execution of various digital initiatives. He blogs at No Straw Men and tweets at @jrick.

This is a guest post from Jonathan Rick.

Would you hire this self-described Internet strategist? He rarely blogs, doesn′t much tweet, and uses YouTube for quick and dirty videos filmed with a Flip camera.

Would your mind change if you knew he were a veteran of Microsoft and Yahoo, whom the Washington Post described as "one of the elder statesmen in the "¦ class of online political operatives"? What if NationalJournal.com credited him with expanding the Republican National Committee′s e-mail list from 1.8 million to 12 million, and "dramatically improving the party's social media outreach"? His name: Cyrus Krohn.

What about this guru? He, too, rarely tweets, much less blogs, and enjoys only 285 Facebook friends. Yet he′s spent the past two and a half years building, from scratch, what the Politico ranks as the fourth best e-mail list in politics. Last year, PoliticsOnline and the World E-Democracy Forum named him one of the "Top 10 Changing the World of Internet and Politics." His name: David Kralik.

Finally, unlike Cyrus and David, our third executive is active on Twitter, yet has only 271 followers. He suspended his personal blog more than a year ago, and only rarely comments on the blog he helped found, RedState. His day job? Executive Vice President at Edelman, the largest independent pr firm, where he runs the digital public affairs practice and his clients include Wal-Mart and American Petroleum Institute. His name: Michael Krempasky.

Clearly, these guys are major players in the digital media field. They speak at conferences, command sizable salaries, and boast enviable records of accomplishment.

Yet their efforts at personal branding"”their own PR"”are relatively lackluster. In short, they′re behind-the-scenes operators, who keep their heads down. They′ll give a quote to a reporter, but client work is their priority.

And yet, if these folks were job searching, a recruiter no doubt would advise them to raise their own profile"”to beef up their LinkedIn page, optimize the search engine results for their names, and start publishing thought-leadership pieces.

This advice is well taken, but perhaps overdispensed. Even if you work in digital media, you need not have 500 Facebook friends, as David All asks of his potential employees. In fact, you′d do just as well to help a client gain 10,000 Twitter followers than to attain this feat for yourself. As Sean Hackbarth can attest, even being a well-connected blogger since 1999 does not guarantee gainful employment.

Put another way, Show me what you′ve done for others, and I′ll discern who are.

Jonathan Rick supports clients across the federal government on the strategy and execution of various digital initiatives. He blogs at No Straw Men and tweets at @jrick.
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