When Clients Do Not Respond to Interviews
Oftentimes, the new freelancer is faced with wonder why the first interested client that comes their way is not responding after they are interested in knowing a provider through an interview. There are actually several reasons why clients do not respond.
photo credit: 4U (SXC)
- They are busy with their jobs. Most people that post jobs on the website are not really HR people dedicated to screen manpower. Contracted work is often defined by the department that needed it most – oftentimes the head of offices post out their subcontracted jobs at the online offshore job marketplaces.
- They hired another person in another freelance site or within their workplace. This is often a usual practice, so it is important to put the best foot forward in applying for a job because the competition sometimes extends not only to one job marketplace but to others too.
- They realized that they lack budget for that particular job. There are some instances when clients overlooked that they had no budget to pay for an outsourced job, or simply re-allocated the funds to some other priority task and decided not to pursue the hire.
- The job is too simple: they realized that they can do that job themselves. I run into some very simple tasks that were posted out on workplaces such as oDesk where the client did not realize that the job will just need a simple Excel formula (instead of a macro) to complete the job. There were so many applicants and many even provided the steps on how to do it.
With these reasons in mind, it is often useful to write up a follow up letter or two: if there is still no response then it can be safe to assume that the buyer may not be interested. Simply relying on one job where the client invited you for the first interview could really be exciting – I did jump at joy when I got that first interview – but then, keep in mind that there are other jobs waiting to be done. Applying to other jobs will definitely increase the odds of getting better jobs and finally getting hired.
