Weird situation with a job application and a delayed or missng email

November 14, 2007 10:27 AM

I submitted an online job application I really care about and then I didn't get the auto-confirmation email promised on the "successful submission" screen. What should I do?

It's been an hour.

I'm positive I typed my email address correctly, and I do zero spam filtering on this address -- none at the server level, none locally. The address itself is known-good (I'm receiving other emails there with no delay).

The company explicitly says not to resubmit apps and to "check your spam folder" if you don't get the confirmation email (I'm sure they will assume the problem is on my end if I resubmit).


POSSIBLE ISSUE:

- I unfortunately used an email address which might have been a problem because it has only a single-character user ID (i.e., it's in the form [e-mail]). Once, a few years ago, this caused a problem with a web app that called it "invalid" because the app was set up with the assumption that user IDs are 2 or more characters.

They did ask for a primary and an alternate email address, and my alternate address doesn't have this issue. But it's possible that at some point in their system my primary email address might have been dropped or rejected and it didn't also try sending to the alternate one.


POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS:

- Should I resubmit the application exactly as it was submitted?

- Should I resubmit the application with my two email addresses reversed (alternate in the primary slot and vice versa)?

- Should I wait a while and, from a different IP address, submit a dummy application with a different address just to see if I do get the email confirmation for that? (And if I do get the confirmation email from that right away, then what should I do??)


This application was for a long-term, part-time, online writing job I think I would be PERFECT for, and for which the selection of people will probably be made pretty fast, so I really care about this and don't know what to do.

If I read this question, the advice I might give is, "Wait a while longer; their system could be really backed up." BUT time might really be a factor with this application process. This is a site that hires people to write about different topics, and I think the topic I applied for is perfect for me (and I'm perfect for it). So If there really is a problem with communication, the longer I wait the more chance I'll miss out on being considered (or contacted). I put a lot of work into the app, which included a writing sample.

Thanks for ideas.

posted by lorimer to computers & internet (5 comments total)

I'd resubmit it, with the addresses reversed (just in case).

Best of luck!
posted by parilous at 10:50 AM on November 14, 2007

Is there a real-live person you can call? That would be my go-to.
posted by crickets at 10:52 AM on November 14, 2007

You might consider using a better email address for job applications you really care about. Given that you know in the past this has caused problems, it seems silly to continue using it. Of course, if their application was well written it would have told you of the error rather than telling you your application was submitted successfully.

Additionally, if I received an application from an email address such as yours, I would probably discard it immediately as a spammer. If a position is popular, they will have loads of applications to read - applications are discarded for the smallest of reasons. The email address someone uses to apply for a job says a lot about them.

That said, its probably just backed up. Sometimes emails don't arrive at all but just because you didn't get the email from them, it doesn't mean they didn't get the message from you - if you applied directly on their site then there's no reason to believe they didn't get the application, the mail would most likely have been sent internally (if it was even sent by email at all)

Give it time.
posted by missmagenta at 10:52 AM on November 14, 2007

After a lot of googling I've found I'm far from the only person to have experienced the same issue with this company. In one thread, there are 5+ people who didn't get the confirmation email but then heard from a human and in some cases got a job. Apparently it's totally inconsistent.

Thanks to the people who replied here. I'm going to relax and trust the submission went fine because the Success page displayed. I will come back to this thread and update if/when I hear anything.
posted by lorimer at 11:54 AM on November 14, 2007

So what happened? Assuming that if you didn't hear back by now, you didn't get the job ;)
posted by jacalata at 2:54 AM on August 18, 2008