Preferred Contact methods - Why I have these in place!

Ryan YatesConsultant

Just a dude in his 30's doing things in Tech & trying to break the stigma's around talking about Mental Health

If anyone reads my blog that knows me quite well and has spent some considerable amount of time interacting with me then you will probably know that I have preferred methods of contact - and with good reason too.

Now I have a few rules that I stick to meticulously because of previous annoyances i have had with Telemarketers etc and these include

  • Not answering “Unknown” or “Blocked” callers
  • Google Searching numbers that I do not have stored in contacts and then deciding if I am to answer the call
  • Typically not answering between 9-5 as that is my employers time and it is distracting
  • Not answering if I’m not expecting a call
  • Expecting a Clear and Concise reason for the call with a Name and contact number or better still and email address

Now I don’t feel that I’m being unreasonable in the last one - After all we are all busy with many different priorities and lets face it unless its an absolute emergency then is mobile contact the best first initial port of call.

No and it never will be!

Some companies in various sectors need to learn this not aptly

  • Debt Collectors
  • Sales teams
  • Recruiters with the age old (I’ve been passed your CV but i’ll try again tomorrow)
  • PPI claims teams - Hint I’ve never had PPI so why waste your time
  • Generic Marketing teams
  • Utility Companies (kind of Sales)
  • Banks
  • Insurance

Note the majority of these calls have a financial intent from the call and these really bug the hell out of me.

So to reduce the levels of nonsense that I get via calls Ii ensure that contact information for my contacts that I have is kept up to date and as a common courtesy I try and ensure that I do the same when required.

So here’s the reason behind this rather ranty post - I’ve been getting calls from recruiters this last few weeks around jobs going in the SharePoint space - and don’t get me wrong I welcome the consideration however it has to be to my terms as so that I can efficiently understand the important aspects for the interaction with myself.

If there is no Role specification that can be emailed to me then realistically there’s no further point in furthering communications - this also applies to these roles where there is a blanket salary response similar to “Market rates” - This is a single most reason why I have in the past either not applied for a role for turned a role down and I will not be the only one.

So I hope that when people and recruiters especially read my Profile that they recognise that there is a dedicated section that explicitly states that people should Email me. This is because it is the Single most effective way for me to attain, ingest and revisit any information that your may have for me.

I’ll look forward to your emails in future instead of you straight up calling me, as that is how I prefer to be contacted.