Waiting around for people to call you is one of the most frustrating parts of job searching.

You might be waiting for a call from the recruiter who’s sent your resume to a client, for the call back from the contact who’s discussing your details with their colleagues, or from the potential employer who’s trying to find a budget to take you on as a contractor.

Waiting for a call is frustrating and usually makes you feel as if you have little or no control of what’s happening to you.

Well stop waiting and take control. Where possible don’t ever, ever give people the opportunity to ‘call you back.’

Instead, make sure its YOU that keeps control. Ensure it’s YOU that is doing the calling back. Ideally, agree to call back at a pre-agreed time and date.

“You can’t do that…(can you?)”

Yes you can. But only if you ask.

In my experience, most people don’t even try to keep control of the conversation. When a recruiter or contact says “I’ll call you back” most people roll over and meekly say, “Ok thank you,” fully expecting a callback that often doesn’t materialise.

In these situations, what you should be doing is seizing control by politely suggesting that you’ll make the follow-up call (after all, you’re the one job searching and they’re likely to be incredibly busy). Once they’ve agreed, find a time and date to make the follow-up call.

Invariably you will hit their voicemail when you call back – but at least you now have control. You can leave a voicemail and say you’ll call back – instead of asking them to call you.

You won’t always get control, but you must always attempt to get it

I accept that not everyone you speak to will agree to this. Some will want to keep control and call you back when they are ready to do so. But you must always attempt to keep control by asking the question.

You’ll often find you need to make several attempted follow-ups to get an answer. That’s ok. It’s part of the course.

Asking the question and keeping control helps you separate you from the crowd. It quickens up your job search and it helps you feel like you have some control over your destiny, rather than just being another number – another person lost on a database or in a backlog of unanswered voicemails…

Sital Ruparelia is managing director of 6 Figure Career Management. This article first appeared on his website.