Easy there, Tiger.

So guess what, Candidate?

It is 2007 and there is this thing called telecommuting.

What this means is that although I might sound super duper professional over the phone, the fact is I might be in yoga pants at my kitchen table trying to shut up the dry-heaving cat and to ignore the hot married guy across the way who is surprisingly and somewhat disturbingly visible through the frosted glass window in his shower that is directly, distractingly in my line of sight when I look up from my laptop.

This also means that I am receiving calls on an ordinary home phone line.

The kind of phone line which, unlike many office phones, has caller ID and call waiting as opposed to multi-lines. And it might be the annoying kind of call waiting which instead of being just a little click is an annoying interrupting momentary drop out in the current call (back in the day, wasn't it just a little click? What happened? Why did the technology get WORSE with time?).

So let's set that fact aside for one moment, shall we?

Okay, so then, also, Candidate? Remember how I called YOU and left a message on your voicemail that I would like to set up a time to phone screen you for a certain position? In that message, there were two important clues: one, I was making a phone call and two, I conduct phone screens.

Now certainly, you being old enough to have this professional job, it HAS occurred to you that it's not really plausible I might be a recruiter who has been designated not just to recruit for this particular position but also just to speak with you personally, correct? That I would just be sitting there, staring off into middle distance waiting for you to call back.

So it IS plausible that - if I was contacting YOU for a phone screen via the phone - I might also be talking to other people on that same phone to conduct the very same phone screen I mentioned to you in my message.

Are you still with me? So let's put it all together, shall we?

When you get my message, and you call me back to set up this phone screen, I appreciate it. And I also certainly appreciate enthusiasm.

But when you call me back FOUR PLUS TIMES IN A ROW in twenty minutes, leaving a voicemail each time, and each time creating a momentary fall out of my current call, which means I have to keep asking the person I am trying to talk to to repeat what they were just saying OR reassure them that even though my voice suddenly went silent mid-sentence, the call was not dropped and I am still there.

This doesn't make me feel all too kindly towards you. And I know it's you, because you were on my caller ID every time.

So please. Call once. Leave a voicemail. Give me some time to call you back, because there are, in fact, other candidates, other jobs, bathroom breaks, lunch, teleconferences, lying down on the couch for five minutes trying to figure out how long it is going to get me out of this dayjob...you know, stuff. Things that are not you. They do exist.