Ex-Google recruiter says ‘everyone fails’ on the vital step of following up with a personalized message after applying for a job

• An ex-Google recruiter told CNBC most job-seekers are skipping an important step.
• Nolan Church, a former recruiter, said applicants should send a follow-up message after applying.
• He said when he worked at DoorDash the company took calls with these applicants 90% of the time.

An ex-Google recruiter says job-seekers might be missing an important step in the application process. 

Nolan Church, a former Google and DoorDash recruiter, told CNBC that almost “everyone fails” when it comes to sending a post-interview follow-up.

While following up after an interview is widely recommended, Church said job-seekers who send a personalized message after their application might increase their chances of landing the role. Job-seekers can send these messages to a company’s hiring manager or CEO via email or professional networking sites like LinkedIn, he said.

He added that company email addresses tended to follow a similar format: “For somebody who’s a CEO of the company, it’s usually first name at company domain name dot com.”

Church told the news outlet that when DoorDash’s CEO would get these messages “he would forward them directly to me every time.” He said the company took calls with these eager applicants around 90% of the time.

The former Google recruiter said on LinkedIn the trick would help get résumés “to the top of the stack.”

Church, who is now CEO of Continuum, worked in the talent departments at Google and DoorDash for around three years, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Jobs are Google are highly in-demand and the company has an acceptance rate of 0.2%, per Quartz. In 2014, Google was getting around 3 million applications per year, according to the company’s head of HR.

Church has given advice to eager job-seekers before.

The former recruiter previously told CNBC applicants have “zero chance” of moving forward if their résumé is full of “text bricks.” He also recommended job-seekers tap AI tools for résumé help.

New AI-powered tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT have been known to produce pretty good cover letters and even help candidates out with the interview process.