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It's been several weeks that I sent an email regarding to an open call for a position. The position is advertised in a personal webpage with the message "[...] suitable candidates feel free to contact me," as opposed to the "job vacancies" page which the faculty has. There is no mentioned deadline.

I have mistakenly used my commercial email address instead of my academic email address. I know that some people filter the incoming emails with respect to the domain name to reduce the number of spams in the primary inbox folder. I am afraid that this is the case.

So, I am considering to send a follow-up (duplicate) email to make sure that the email reached to the person. However, I am not sure how to word the email as I blindly assume that the person uses such filter.

Please note that I am perfectly fine with the idea of my assumption being wrong and the person choosing to ignore my email since I am not a good enough candidate. My concern is that I am a considerable candidate but I might have lost my chance because of some technical issue.

The best outline I have come up with is to write "(please ignore if duplicate)" in the subject, and blame my email provider in the first sentence, and then copy/paste the rest of the mail.

What is the least annoying way to recieve a potential duplicate email?

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    I'm sure that my HR folks would get apoplexy at the concept of spam filtering applications for a position, which is why we don't use email for applications...
    – Jon Custer
    Sep 8, 2020 at 20:32
  • To put my two cents in, I think it is indeed an open call to eliminate formality as the faculty has already a link that advertises job vacancies. This is the exact reason why I am worried, to be honest.
    – padawan
    Sep 8, 2020 at 22:01
  • You should call them.
    – Roland
    Sep 9, 2020 at 10:32

2 Answers 2

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Do not send a duplicate email. Send a follow-up email, with the previous one at the bottom ("several weeks" is already long enough without even an acknowledgement of receipt). Send it from your other address without mentioning the spam issue.

If your email was indeed lost to a filter, this resurrects it, without being an annoyance in the opposite case. Out of the 1% of people who will notice the different sender address (assuming the name you configured to appear is the same in both accounts), 90% will not care and 9% will guess why.

(If you are not sure how to write that follow-up email, it is a different question, that likely has many duplicates at workplace.se).

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Just send an email in any way you want - send the very same email again, or state at the top that you would like to inquire about the status of your application below. As long as you do this once, all fine. If you keep doing it every other week, you will get people annoyed.

As mentioned in the comments, application processes take their time. And if there was no deadline listed, you should still assume them to wait for some 4-6 weeks, and then maybe take another 2 weeks for looking at the applications.

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  • I disagree with the timeline. Although the delay to take a decision might be long, the employer probably knows when it will be taken, and should communicate that to applicants. If they do not, it is absolutely reasonable from applicants to inquire quickly rather than guess about the timeframe.
    – UJM
    Sep 9, 2020 at 11:21

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