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Respond back?

Posted by Bookworm on January 19, 2005

In Reply to: Response posted by R. Berg on January 19, 2005

: : : Can you tell me the correct phrase to use to ask someone to respond back to you. I am job hunting and I want to contact the hiring manager and ask him/her to please respond back to me and let me know if I am still being considered. (Most times they just ignore you.) I don't want to sound like I am begging, but I also don't want to sound too forceful. I think the phrase is "please give me the courtesy of a response." I'm stuck on the verb - is "give" correct? or is it "provide"?

: : : Thanks in advance for any help.

: : In the US language used in these situations change rapidly rather like fads. Ten years ago we would have said "I will contact you [then giving specifics]. We would "I am looking forward to working with you." But we would never give the hiring manager instructions to contact us.

: You can say "I look forward to hearing from you." A personnel director probably has a practice in place already, anyway, and either responds to letters of application or doesn't, whatever the applicant says.

I may be nit-picking here, but is this proper? I thought it shoud be "respond to me" not "respond *back* to me".

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