Following Up to Ignored Reach Outs

I recently reached out to an alum from my school and he didn't respond. I am wanting to follow-up with him in case he didn't see the email or forgot to respond.

Based on everyone's experience, do you tend to notice a higher response rate if you reply to your unread message or if you send a totally new message with the same body? Is there another approach that nets good results that I am overlooking?

I may be overthinking this, which I probably am, but in case I am not, I am wanting to approach this the correct way. Thanks for any guidance

4 Comments
 
Most Helpful

I would do one follow-up at most. Don't use the same message.

If there's no response - just move on to the next person on your list. Don't waste your time.

I suggest you focus on the quality of the responses you get, and not on metrics such as response rate. Few people that are willing to help is way better than a dozen that reluctantly correspond with you.

 

Thanks for the advice. I agree that I should not be fixated on one person.

But, this would be my first follow-up. I'm reaching out to other alums, but I am trying to show persistence to this one. Are you recommending I respond to my ignored email, or should I start a new email?

 

I would send a polite one-liner along the lines of:

Hello, Mr. X,

I reached out to you last week, I still hope to talk to you about (whatever you asked in the first email). Hope to hear from you soon.

Keep it short and to the point. There's no need to repeat yourself, modern email software is smart enough to group emails together, so the recipient will get the context for the follow-up in no time at all.

Good luck!

 

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