Following Up
A week after posting your CV/Resumé you should contact the companies by telephone. Your initial feedback will be negative most likely. Do not be too disheartened, this is to be expected.

Following that and until you get a job or are asked to stop, you should phone each prospective employer at the most weekly, probably better once every two weeks. This way your name will stay in their minds but you will not annoy them too much. Keep your phone contact short. After they have your CV on file, you only really need to touch base. Keeping the girl from personnel hanging on the phone is not going to magic a job out of the air. Help her to help you by just being polite and brief. Eventually your efforts will pay dividends.

For those of you in the UK reading this and are unemployed at this time or ex-forces it would be worth contacting your local Employment Service or Job Centre and asking about getting assistance with provision of envelopes, stamps, photocopying and telephone calls. 'Job Club' provide all of these services for free and is very handy when you have such a large amount of CVs to send off.

If you can get through to a company's personnel department, (with a lot of companies it's hard to get past the receptionist), ask for the person's name so you can ask for them personally every time you phone that company.

You may be able to get the name by asking the receptionist for the name of the person to whom you should post your CV. Handing over your CV in person can often be to your benefit, especially if you give a good impression of yourself. If you live far away from their office it may be worth while introducing yourself after you have been regularly sending your CV and phoning them. If the industry in general is busy and you just don't seem to be getting anywhere by post and phone, it may be worth the trip. I've know a few guys who have stayed a couple of nights Aberdeen or Great Yarmouth and just toured the drilling companies and employment agencies delivering their CVs in person during the day.

While I was working with Rowan Drilling, one guy even pitched a tent on the plot of land outside their offices. He got a job!!!