What’s in a health screening package?

Almost all health screening packages in Malaysia include at its very basic level, blood and urine tests. This pair of tests would usually cover:

• Full blood count (or a FBC – measuring your red and white blood cells, and your platelet)
• Glucose levels (usually testing for diabetes)
• Lipid profile (your cholesterol levels)
• Liver and kidney function (sometimes marketed as “renal tests”)
• BMI check (weight + height, though I am personally skeptical)
• Blood pressure

Depending on your provider, this basic blood and urine test may be all they offer. Usually they would ask you to fast the night before and drink only plain water in the meantime. For this reason, health screening appointments would usually be in the early morning, and if it’s only a blood + urine test, would usually be over in a few minutes, with the results either being in a few hours or sent to you later.

Due to my family history, I generally opt for a more comprehensive health screening. Beyond the usual blood and urine test, I will usually add:

• Mammogram/Breast ultrasound (mainly due to age)
• Abdomen and pelvic ultrasound (see fibroid nonsense)
• Stress test (walking on ever-steeper incline at speed every 3 minutes)

Why not include cancer marker tests too, you ask? That’s easy. Most of the time when I start searching for these add-ons, providers would automatically include testing for cancer markers in their offering. Not all cancers are covered, of course, but they usually do the more common ones, like breast cancer, colorectal, etc, again, depending on the provider.

Of course, the more you add, the more expensive it gets. And not all providers are alike.

So, how did I do this year?

2025’s health screening results

Last year’s health screening numbers were quite meh. While my sugar levels were going down, my cholesterol and liver weren’t in great shape. Add high blood pressure concerns and I remember last year’s reading with the doctor could be basically boiled down to “I really need to start exercising at the very least and eating oats.”

Start with a simple walk

And yes, I did start on walks first. Unless it was raining, and even then sometimes despite the rain, I’d go out for a post-work walk. We had those huge rainbow umbrellas at home, so walking in a light drizzle was not an issue. I’d aim for something like 15-18 minutes… or rather 1km. My aim was to bring that down to at least 12 minutes, because my personal best was 1km inp 10 minutes, way back when I was doing 10KM runs regularly.

Why such a low goal, you ask? It’s because I was still recovering from anaemia. And at that moment, any deliberate exercise that did not leave me feeling winded and exhausted was considered a win. All I wanted to do was to add movement to my day, especially since my day job was as sedentary as anything.

So the goal was to complete 1km at the fastest and safest walking speed I could. Most of the time though, I ended up using that time to just… walk and stare up into the sky, marvelling at the play of colours the setting sun painted on the clouds, or enjoying the cool breeze as the day literally ended.

By the time I got home, I would take a few moments to cool down with some stretches, or just head straight to dinner, because again, the aim was to add movement, not exertion. Most days I wasn’t really sweaty by the time I finished, but I definitely did end up taking a bath after dinner. I think my best time before the haze attacked was 13:30 a KM sometime in May or June.

Less oats, more granola

Then for my mornings, I was eating granola. Not everyday, and not all the time, but maybe 3-4 times a week, depending on whether I was going into the office. And it was granola instead of just plain oats because because I hate the taste of normal oats. I also no longer had patience to add fruits and yogurt to mine either (ah, the days of overnight oats are long past), so I started buying supermarket granola.

Well, I bought different brands each time to find one that was not too expensive and had flavours I actually liked. You can see the brands I return to most often on my Shopee Affiliate storefront. There is one brand I do not like because for whatever reason, their “Oats Cluster Mix” would not soften no matter how long I let them soak in milk.

I personally do not like Aeon’s TopValu Oats Cluster Mix. I bought the chocolate one because I am a forever kid, and while my milk became very chocolaty less than halfway through, chewing the cluster mix was a chore. Yes, a chore. Because they were hard and I kept wondering if it was meant to be that crunchy.

I learnt that I did not need to eat a lot of granola to feel full. My portion would usually be about one fist or slightly smaller. Bear in mind, I was eating granola, not just pure oats, so it was not just pure carbs. Anything more than that serving and I would be feeling sleepy instead… even if I had two cups of coffee before that.

Preliminary health screening results

Because I had been seeing pretty much the same health screening doctor since forever, she recognised me and actually took the time to check against last year’s results. As I had been quite sedentary the last few months and coupled with the forever bleeding issue in September, I was expecting to get another lecture this year.

Instead I got smiles.

My cholesterol levels were significantly lowered, my blood pressure was under control (yes that was more the medication I feel) and my sugar levels were excellent. That surprised me the most. All the scans I was taking (including the mammogram) came out great.

The only thing I needed to keep in mind was that my blood count was still a bit low (probably need to take more iron pills) and my BMI was not that great, which was also reflected in my liver, so that’s another thing to work on.

But yes, small blessings in a crazy

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Yes, it’s Nanowrimo season, even if the organisation and the website that used to coordinate it has gone down in a figurative sea of flames (I was there for part of it and man… calling it a shitshow would be polite). 

In any case, the Medium post encouraged me to check out Draftsgiving, which is Novlr’s version of Nanowrimo. As Medium itself pointed out, Nanowrimo’s spirit lives on in quite a few different versions, with some being: 

• Nano 2.0: Organized by the guy who started it all, Chris Baty. This particular challenge is slightly different from the original; instead of writing 50,000 in a month, you can set your own goals. 
• Worldember: Organized by World Anvil, a platform that helps you keep track of the worlds you’ve built (usually for tabletop gaming but also for people who love world building). Their challenge is 10,000 words of worldbuilding words. Critically, theirs is in DECEMBER, not November  
• Draftsgiving: Organized by Novlr (the site I’m using for my daily writing exercises!). Similar to Nano 2.0, this is a “choose your own target” kind of challenge, but theirs is a bit more standardised – aim for 10,000, 25,000 (what I chose!) and 50,000, which is the traditional goal. 

One of the better trends I’m noticing with these challenges is that they are all much more flexible compared to the traditional Nanowrimo goals. It’s a great thing, and I’m all here for it. 

Alright, I need to get started on work, so write more soon hehehe. 

The post Draftsgiving, Nanowrimo, and Novel Writing appeared first on Ink to Screen.

I’ve had a blog for over 15 years now, I think. Holy sheet it has really been that long (this is why you don’t do the math, kids). But in any case, I’ve had the domain for that time. I used to post a lot in the mid-aughts, but as work caught up and Google began the whole “you need to be useful to get us to recommend you AND ask people to link to you” I’ve just fallen off the bandwagon of posting. 

There’s also that thing where everyone who used to blog now have moved for the most part to social media, but while I do maintain the boomer set of socials (Facebook, Insta, LinkedIn :p) I don’t really do much these days other than repost or reshare. There are other people who are far more eloquent who are doing the actual work, and I would rather boost their own than to interject mine. 

But part of the reason why I started writing daily in public again is because I wanted to get used to thinking in my own skin again. I’ve been so focused thinking about work, writing for work, thinking non-fiction stuff that my capabilities and confidence in writing fiction is at an all-time low (not that I was very skilled at it in the first place sobs). 

And here’s the thing… a lot of people turn to GenAI slop because they are afraid of what they might uncover if they wrote their own thoughts and feelings and put it out into the world. Sometimes I read a story and I wonder, what is it the writer is trying to say? If a human is writing it, I’d like to think, we can immediately identify their motivations.

“Oh this writer is trying to promote their new course.” 

“This writer is traumadumping.” 

“This writer needs a hug, no one needs to go through clients like those.” 

Everything we do as humans is in the service of connecting with others. Yes, even introverts. We do it to connect to something outside our inner world. GenAI slop mimics the attempt at connection without doing the inner work. Asking it to write a story so you can submit it to a competition defeats the purpose. 

Perhaps the best use of GenAI would be to destroy capitalism. It has always been exploitative (why do you think colonisation is the trauma of so many countries?) and it is now the an ouroboros that is actively eating itself. Doing what you could to accelerate that process is always good. 

With that said, thank you for reading and watching. Have a good day! 

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This was inspired by a Discord conversation.

Building a routine from scratch is ridiculously hard. And it’s hard to silence the nagging voice within that says failure to complete an entire routine from scratch means you’re an abject failure (hello gym routines, “5am morning productive routines” and other nonsense).

What I’ve come to appreciate though is that recently there’s been a lot more media where it’s less “do all these things to be successful” and more of “these are the things that work for me and the decision tree that led me here,” which I think is a much more useful framework.

Understanding why a routine works for that person, and the choices that led to it, can help inform your own decision tree when you want to build your own routine.

For what is a routine, but a series of habits, and what is a habit, but a series of automatically-made choices?

So let’s build your new routine.

Pick a habit, and stick to it

The thing I’ve found most useful when trying to build or change a routine is to break it down into component parts. And because this is something that gets stronger with repetition, I also find it useful to think of it as building a skill. When you first start, you’re going to suck and you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. The trick is understand what failed, and then figure out how to prevent it from happening again.

So, how do you build a new morning routine?

Say you switched jobs and your morning commute is now 20 minutes longer. We all know it’s not as simple as simply waking up 20 minutes earlier. So practice.

Set your alarm to wake yourself 30 mins earlier. Do what you would usually do to get ready. For me, the first version of this routine looked something like this:

• Set alarm to snooze ten minutes
• Play a game on the phone to wake up
• Roll out of bed
• Shower
• Brush teeth
• Get dressed
• Fill up water bottle
• Grab office bag, sweater, and head out the door.

Looks ok so far right? Here are two things I didn’t do – take my daily medication and bring my water bottle with me. I also had a tendency to forget my phone stand… which is important because my rail pass is in there.

So after a few weeks, I decided to adapt one of the habits. Not all of them, just one. And it was the water bottle habit. Once I filled up the water bottle, I would take my daily meds. And because by that time I had already moved the water bottle from the dispenser and had the bag next to me, packing it was as simple as sliding into the bottle holder and heading out.

What if you DON’T have a routine yet? Then pick just ONE habit to practice. Say you want to be a 5am person. Start by setting your alarm for 5am, and actually opening your eyes when your alarm goes off. Don’t snooze. Make it a habit that “when my alarm goes off, I roll out of bed.”

Whether you roll out of bed to sleep on the floor or go to the toilet to freshen up is your choice. Start with just ONE habit, the habit of rolling out of bed when the alarm goes off. When you can stay awake longer, then you can start habit stacking.

The power of habit stacking

The idea behind habit stacking is that you attach your desired new habit onto an existing one. So it’s like completing a sequence of actions in order without thinking. I first came across this concept in James Clear’s Atomic Habits (it’s one of the few self-help books I’ve come to appreciate for its honesty and compassion).

Stacking desired new habits on top of old ones makes it more likely for you to stick with it, he says here. In my case, my face washing habit is tied to my shower habit; when I shower, I will also cleanse my face instead of doing it over the sink. I still remember the first few weeks of tying these habits together; it was so odd to stand under the shower head and let the cleanser rinse away but I’ve been doing it for over twenty years now, and it feels much more odd NOT to.

However, something to note before you start stacking your habits is to consider its feasibility. As Clear says on his site, maybe you decided that after sipping your morning coffee, you want to do some meditation. But if your mornings are chaotic, then that might not be a good time. For some people, they like brushing their teeth in the shower because it’s less messy than doing it over the sink.

Whatever fits your needs and goals, works.

Hope that helps!

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I say that, but today feels like it is very slow going. I have had breakfast, I have a coffee ready to drink, but it is already 930am and I have yet to get started on any of my work tasks. I’m also a ball of anxiety because of money. I feel panicky that we may be short, and I shudder to think about what that means for our finances and our credit rating. 

More than that, I’m terrified of needing to borrow money from relatives or anyone else to continue paying our bills. I can do without my little luxuries and shopping; it’s the monthly bills of housing loans, utilities, etc that terrify me. We are also probably looking to move out sometime next year; the fees for that are probably going to make another dent in our finances too haha sobs.

That is one of the reasons why I have been buying so many lottery tickets, because the dream that we will actually strike it big and not have this weighing on us is just so tempting. I say we but it’s more of just me. 

It’s very odd when you write a whole bunch of words, working through the panic that’s been slowly eating you away, and when the words are on the screen, your heart is still racing but your mind is empty. There’s nothing else to write or consider anymore. Or rather, there are not many things left to consider. 

I can probably try to do freelancing, but I doubt I will get any takers. I don’t even think I’m that good of a writer, to be honest. Isn’t it funny? Truly an imposter; spends her entire career working with words but works enough with them only to understand how they should fit together and not so much how well they look or feel to the end user for sale. 

Honestly I feel like I’m a maintenance writer. The kind of writer you go to when you want to someone to look at your work and tell you how this and that is not working. And I’m not a one of those who can do very niche machinery, like being able to look at an industrial machine, listen to it, and immediately spot the flaw. Nor am I the kind of maintenance person who goes from job to job in people’s houses, and is able to solve their issues (yes plumbers, carpenters, and service people are sorely underrated and under appreciated). 

I am probably the kind who is content to work for just one building and spend my entire life working for that building, only to slowly phase myself out of a job by enthusiastically embracing new tools that make life easier for both tenants and myself to fix things, to the point that company decides it’s not worth keeping me because I am far too expensive and don’t move as fast as the young whippersnappers who don’t understand that the reason why the cable is routed through that particular conduit is not because it’s convenient, but because that used to be an actual service vent…

Right, done with the panicking. Oh, shorter than expected video too. According to the recorder, it seems like it’s just under 15 minutes. I’ll take that. Thank you for reading, and for watching. See you around. 

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And I use the word Buddhist literally. This particular cafe is attached to a Buddhist charity foundation, specifically the cafe is Jing Si Books and Cafe, and the association is Tzu Chi. 

As you can probably hear from the background noise, there’s a lot of things going on in the cafe today. I think the volunteers are gathering here (unsure because it’s the first of the month or if it just happened to be an activity that they are going for), but yeah, apologies for the more than usual noise. Who knows, maybe this can help those who want to hear what it sounds like working in a Buddhist cafe. 

There are a number of similar Buddhist establishments through the Klang Valley which are attached to various associations, but the Jing Si chain is the one I generally look out for, simply because I know their cafes tend to play very calming music and is usually quite quiet. 

I say usually because today I have my earbuds on and I can still hear the conversation at the next table, so I have no idea if this recording will turn out well lol. For all I know, I may end up recording the old uncles and aunties at the next table by accident, simply because the mic is pointed in that direction. 

This cafe is a sanctuary of sorts. During the recent haze, when I came here to work because the air con at home was busted and the heat was getting unbearable, Jing Si became my refuge. And I was not the only one too. I saw a lot of secondary school students, working adults, and even artists, come here. There’s one girl I know who has what reminds me of a pink Kiiboom Phantom 81 keyboard, but I’m pretty sure it’s not. It sounds absolutely delicious though. 

There’s another lady who sketches on what looks like her iPad pro, and I can tell she probably draws for a living, because she wears a wristguard. There’s another guy here who uses a Huawei laptop (not unusual in this place) but his always seems to have a RM1 note stuck to the back of the screen, for some reason. Don’t see the guy who played an open-world modern game the last time (he brought his laptop and was gaming but I didn’t recognise the game). 

Then there are the kids who come here to study, some taking over the tables with books and writing utensils. Some are tutors or parents with their kids, teaching younger kids. And there are a lot of people who just come here to read. They just come here, order a drink, and then sit down and read. 

That’s all I have today. Thanks for reading. Goodbye.

The post November 1, 2026 appeared first on Ink to Screen.

You can do everything right and still fail. That is not a weakness, that is life!

Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise, played by Patrick Stewart

I do not have many memories of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was a show I watched sometimes as a kid, and it ran specifically on Malaysia’s then first private broadcaster, TV3, and it specifically ran on Sundays, I think around 4pm to 5pm or 3.30pm to 4.30pm. Either way, it was in that slot. 

It was also much more advanced for me, and while I didn’t understand a lot of it, there are specific scenes where I could not quote you word for word what they did, but I could tell you the impact they had on me. 

The push-pull attraction of the Borg Queen and Captain Picard was one of them. In the same episode, or perhaps the same season, I remember watching Data being very tempted into accepting the Borg’s offer, only to reject her in the end. What struck me about that particular scene, is when Picard asks Data if he ever considered it, and Data said he did, for how many miliseconds. 

Picard may have laughed, and Data did too, but I remembered the line Data said in reply to that laugh was “It is very long for an android.” 

How many memories do we have that is like that? Where it feels like the weight of a decision, the action to be taken, feels like it was something that took us forever to decide or act? I have woken in fear from a dream, body heavy, gripped by a leaden fear that keeps me frozen and hesitant. Even when I tell myself, “we must get up and get a drink,” my body refuses to obey, and any movement I make feels like fighting through a pit of heavy mud that’s just about to solidify. 

“Curzon my old friend!” 

“I’m Jadzia now.” 

“Jadzia, my old friend!” bear hug

I grew up mainly with Star Trek: Voyager. It was screened at a time much easier to access when I was a teen, and having a female captain who could take in a former enemy and elevate him to second-in-command because he was competent at his job did wonders for my thought processes. Yet the scene I could quote word for word is that meeting of Jadzia and the Klingons. My brain has tagged that as ST;TNG because I don’t think I ever watched a full episode of DS:9 while it was airing (TV2/Metrovision?, 1030pm or something stupid like that) but I remember most was how if they were true friends, your name was just a marker you could discard. 

It is who you are at your core, the actions you choose to take, and the emotions you share with others, that are true lasting legacies. 

Thank you, Patrick Stewart. God rest your soul. 

The post RIP, Patrick Stewart appeared first on Ink to Screen.

I could have also written about my ongoing gynaecological issues, which can be summarised as “fibroid causing hormonal and physical troubles” but as I am still undergoing treatment, I think I will probably just capture the thoughts later.

There was also a job application that requires me to… use an actual computer to complete the next step. I… sigh deeply, because one of the tests requires turning on the camera, and well, the hubs is sleeping in the room where I work from. For obvious reasons, I do not want to use the company laptop.

And that brings me to the last thing that has been living rent-free in my head since last night – George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language essay, in which he decries the vagueness of modern language. Someone on Youtube was recommending five essays to help you think better, and this was one of them.

And I could not stop thinking about his words. One of the things he pointed out is that word gets dressed up in such weird constructions and fashions (my words, not his) that they lose their original meaning. This particularly applies to what he calls “ready-made phrases” which are phrases and metaphors we use so often, they have lost all meaning.

If you’re familiar with those rules of writing where they say “don’t use a long word, when a short one will do,” and to cut out words if they don’t add anything to it, this is where those “rules” come from. For Orwell, that kind of language serves no purpose, except to make vague things which were quite clear cut. There was a lovely example of how an English professor defending (then) Russian totalitarianism, for good reason, cannot simply say, “I believe killing your opponents is the right thing to do,” but rather must couch the words in vague, moralising high-ground language so as to imply the removal of opponents (my paraphrase, you’ll see in the video how many times I have bounced back to the original essay haha).

Vague language is the defense of the indefensible, and one of its hallmark is hedging. In this case, hedging means to put a buffer between what you mean, and how others perceive it (my words again). I tend to hedge a lot of my writing, because I was trained by social media, especially in my early years. I hedged because there is always an edge case, and in Malaysia at least, that edge case would always make it known that it didn’t apply to them. And so I got used to hedging.

Which, now that I am writing it, is a very silly belief and thought process to hold onto. I hedged because I was an edge case in a lot of ways, and I was hoping that by doing so, I was going to show other edge cases that I saw them too, and that they could extend the same kindness to me as the one I was sending to them.

Huh. That is all for today. Thank you for reading, I need to contemplate this before I start work in a bit.

The post Reading Essays appeared first on Ink to Screen.

So, what is the wastewater writing technique?

The wastewater writing technique is basically simply stream-of-consciousness writing. The difference between Tony Stubblebine’s daily writing in public exercise and Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages is that this can be done anytime, any place. All you need is just focus for a few minutes.

I find it the most useful when I’m transitioning between tasks or if I’m having trouble getting started. I sit down, take out a pen and the scrapbook I’m using, pen in today’s date (optional, I just like dating things), and I start writing.

Sometimes I’ll write the title as “Wastewater writing”, sometimes I’ll give it another random title. Anyway, I don’t think much on it. I just get started writing.

Sometimes I’ll start by saying “I should get started on this” and then write what I feel, think, or any misgivings that come to mind. The idea is to understand the motivation of what’s blocking you, and then you can start thinking about how to fix it.

Sometimes that blockage is an unrelated task you haven’t been able to complete. Well, if that’s the case, my question is, is it something you can complete now? Otherwise, add it to your calendar and set a reminder. Sometimes my blockage is because I don’t have enough information to go on, and I have an idea but I haven’t organised how to go about it yet.

The only “rule” I unconsciously have is that it cannot be more than three pages long. That usually means to me that I have a much deeper worry and it is turning into another form of procrastination. My wastewater writing usually comes out to about one A5 page in a Kokuyo Campus notebook, sometimes more, sometimes a bit less. Usually just about.

And that’s it. Thank you for reading.

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Congratulations! You’ve aced the interview and are now waiting for your offer letter. How often should you follow up with the recruiter?

Honestly? As soon as you have the exact timeline of what is supposed to happen when. I’ve been a salaried employee for most of my career, and I realise my persistence is one of the reasons why I didn’t get stymied in my job search when a local multinational pulled the rug under my feet after a very successful interview at the last minute due to their (then) annual hiring freeze.

Note: I use HR/recruiter interchangeably here, because in my experience the two are mostly the same.

Get the next action immediately once interview is over

One of your last questions, if it’s not mentioned by your hiring manager or the HR person in charge, should be what the next step is. If the interview was a success and they say they’d like to proceed, thank them and ask them what you can expect to happen. If they say something like “Oh, HR will be in touch,” SET A TIMER FOR NO LESS THAN 36 HOURS.

Ideally, within two hours, drop the HR person and your interviewer an email thanking them for the interview and say you’re looking forward to hearing from them soon. NOTE: If your interview happened after hours (or close to it), schedule that email the next morning.

36 hours AFTER that interview, send a SECOND email, if you have not received any further steps from the recruiter/HR. Yes, you read that right. A SECOND email.

What if they reach out over WhatsApp?

You can reply to them there… AND CC THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT IN YOUR EMAIL. While WhatsApp (WA) can be used as evidence in Malaysia’s courts, an email is a much better and more legitimate channel. Have questions etc? You can use WA to ask the recruiter clarifying questions, or in many cases, to check if the recruiter received your documents. If the HR asks you to do something, submit the task via email, then acknowledge in WA.

Document submissions

In a lot of larger companies, this is potentially the most time-consuming part (beyond the background and health checks). There are two timelines to keep track here:

1. HR’s submission deadline
2. Your actual submission date

Obviously with 1, there’s no negotiation. You need to submit the requested documents by that time. However, most times you would probably submit LONG BEFORE that date. So what should your timeline be?

Send your documents as requested, then give it at least 2 hours before you ping the recruiter. Why two hours? Some companies may be using a very old mail system (yes, there are multinationals in Malaysia who still have a 10MB per inbox limit, no, I wish I was joking), so even though theoretically email is “instant”, it actually isn’t.

After two hours, ping the recruiter via WA if that is available to you. Otherwise, you can send them a follow-up email the next day, just asking if they received your email.

So there’s two timelines here to check responses:

• WA-reachable: Send message after 2 hours
• Email-only: Double check the next day

Why these timelines?

Well, on one hand, you don’t want to spam them in case they’re really busy. But the other reason is that if you only managed to submit your documents close to the due date and it gets missed, this allows you to resubmit immediately instead of accidentally failing because the recruiter didn’t get your email as the attachments were blocked for whatever reason and they got no notification (yes, personal experience, don’t ask).

Other timelines to keep track

You can probably see where I’m going. Whenever you finish a task set by HR, send a follow-up email or notice to let them know you’ve completed it within two hours (unless it’s at the end of the day). Then give it a few days before you send a second follow-up email to see what’s the progress.

If they tell you that something will take a week, just double check with them on the appropriate timeline. Say you submitted to a background and reference check, and they said it will take approximately one week – set a reminder to check in with them on Day 9 or Day 10.

Note: I’m not talking Working Days here. Calendar days. Always assume calendar days unless they specifically say working days.

Hours of communication

NEVER message HR after hours, unless the conversation started before that. What I mean is let’s assume HR sends you a message at 530pm and you reply, and you have a conversation with them that looks like it’s going to go beyond 6pm. That’s fine. But if you are the one initiating the convo with HR, try not to send any messages before 6pm.

The reason is simple. Would you be happy if someone messaged you about a task when you’re clocking off? That’s it. Be nice.

What if HR doesn’t respond?

Assume best intentions (though competency is another thing, IYKYK) and send a follow up the next day either during working hours or better yet, during lunch hours. Sometimes they may just be swamped, sometimes they don’t look at their phones. And if they don’t reply to you, send an email and CC your hiring manager. Yes, make sure everyone can see whether or not the recruiter is doing their job.

Job market is brutal, take care out there

This is all best case advice. I won’t and can’t guarantee you will land the job quicker but doing this shows that you’re proactive, considerate, and most importantly, that you really do want the job. Remember to hydrate and take breaks in between.

Oh, and until both offer letter AND start dates are confirmed, DO NOT STOP LOOKING. Keep going for interviews, keep applying, and don’t assume that the job is confirmed. Usually when the offer letter is out I’d tell friends they can probably safely resign if they have a full time job, but I’ve seen first hand where the offer letter was retracted due to last minute board disapproval.

Good luck!

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