There is a very important difference between persevering in your search for a job – and hassling. It’s a thin line, but as soon as busy people feel exasperated by your approaches they will begin to avoid you instead of considering you for the next available post.

A Senior Producer at the BBC Natural History Unit was sent a very impressive CV by a girl wanting to be a researcher, just before he went abroad on a filming trip. She persisted in e-mailing him twenty times in as many days, and then began to leave telephone messages; when he returned from his trip, she was promptly dropped from the list of ‘possibles’.

If you do send in a CV, or an enquiry letter, and you get no response after a few weeks or so, a simple letter or brief telephone call is okay. If you still don’t get a response, just try elsewhere.