I was trolling OneS­tart Clas­si­fieds a cou­ple weeks ago look­ing for cheap deals on stuff I didn’t need and see­ing if there were any job post­ings for some quick, easy money. I found a job enti­tled “Infor­mat­ics Stu­dent” with this description:

We are look­ing for a cer­ti­fied IT per­son pre­ferrably a stu­dent in the Infor­mat­ics field. Must have expe­ri­ence in the web design, mer­chant ser­vices, and other web related tech­nol­ogy. Seri­ous inquiries only.

It said it was going to pay $10/hr so I shot off an email to the guy that was rather plain but straight to the point. He didn’t give a lot of details so I didn’t either.

I’m a senior Infor­mat­ics stu­dent with years of web design expe­ri­ence. Please review my resume and list of tech­ni­cal skills:

http://maxbeatty.com/resume
http://maxbeatty.com/skills

I’ll be grad­u­at­ing in May and start­ing an IT con­sult­ing job in Chicago at the begin­ning of June, but I have lots of extra time this semes­ter to take on a new project. Could you pro­vide some details and what you’re look­ing for? Thanks and can’t wait to hear from you!

Best,
Max Beatty

The job was posted on 1/29, I emailed him on 2/2, and then he finally responded at 2am on 2/17

How are things going Max? This is Der­ren XXXXXX who once put a post on ones­tart about work­ing with an IT stu­dent. I have checked out your resume and would like to sit down with you and let you know what I am look­ing for­ward to work­ing with you on. I am in Bloom­ing­ton tomor­row all day, if you want to meet how­ever, the evening is the only time I have avail­able. Wednes­day I will be here all day and any time will work with me. Please give me an email back or a phone call so we can set up a meet­ing. My cell num­ber is XXX-XXX-XXXX and I look for­ward to hear­ing from you soon. Thank you

I emailed him back around 3:45pm later that day try­ing to set up a meet­ing time and included my phone num­ber so he could call me if that was quicker than email.

Hey Der­ren,

Would some time around 7 be good for you tomor­row? Where would you like to meet? Some place on cam­pus like the union or library? My phone num­ber is 317–319-1140. Look for­ward to meet­ing you tomor­row!

Max

I never heard from the guy. No call, no email, noth­ing. Was I right to wait for a response from the guy? Obvi­ously, the ball was in his court but then again peo­ple say not to wait for some­one else to call you back. Since I didn’t know any­thing about this guy or his project, I wasn’t dying to get in touch and learn more. It was just a stan­dard $10/hr gig and I’m not totally pressed for cash at the moment.

Shouldn’t he have emailed me back? Was it too much to ask for a call? I’ve had suc­cess in the past cou­ple of weeks meet­ing peo­ple to tutor them and this is the usual formula:

  1. They email me ask­ing if I can tutor them
  2. I respond sure, here’s my fee, and try to set up a meet­ing time offer­ing my phone # for convenience
  3. They respond to con­firm plans and give me their phone # 

It’s sim­ple. It works. Is this Der­ren guy new to set­ting up meet­ings or am I too used to meet­ing fresh­men at the library? I’d love for any feed­back you might have as I con­tinue to look for free­lance gigs this semester.