Let’s now look at the importance of following up with your applications or inquiry emails. As I noted in the other chapter, whether you apply for a job that is hiring or not, you need to follow up. If a school replies to your message and gives you specific directions, you need to follow those directions and do exactly what they say and when they say it.
Let’s say you haven’t heard anything (or at least anything productive) from a job that you applied for or an inquire email that you sent. My rule of thumb is you should follow up every 60 to 90 days. This is not too short a time where you will be annoying the hiring person. It’s not too long that they’ll forget about you. For the schools that you’ve applied to with databases directly on their website, you may want to follow up every 30 days and make sure that your application is still current and everything is in good working order. In this case, you do not have to contact anyone. You can simply go to their website and log in if that system it set up.
For jobs to which you apply or send inquiries, you want to send a simple follow-up email. In the Resource Center you’ll find samples of some follow-up emails that you can send. You can use these or modify them to fit you specifically. Either way, following up is a very critical part of this process. As you can imagine, with online education growing in popularity, schools are getting hundreds if not thousands of applications and you need to stand out in your follow-up messages.
It is vital that you are updating your spreadsheet of schools you make contact with throughout this entire process. I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep this information current, as this will save you a great deal of time. As with all other emails from schools, if you do happen to get a response, make sure that you read it thoroughly and follow the directions that they provide. Following up with the jobs to which you have applied is a critical part of finding an online teaching job. If you do not follow up, you may miss out on job opportunities.
