Interview Follow-up

When you interview, I highly suggest you always follow up with a Thank You note / email. There are some people who think this is unnecessary. They think it is akin to being a “brown nose” or sucking up to gain favor. They would ridicule this practice but, ignore them, they are either lazy or they’re idiots, you can tell them I said so (sorry if it sounds harsh, but I don’t suffer fools gladly).

 

Interview follow-up, in the form of a short Thank You note is time-tested and was, in the past, a normal protocol and professional gesture. It isn’t about being nice as much as it is a demonstration of your commitment and proactivity during the interview process. And yeah, it can make the difference between who gets hired and who doesn’t, especially in a close contest. I can prove it.

 

Last year I conducted a search for a client company and after reviewing and considering a lot of potential candidates, I submitted four. The way I conduct my work on any recruitment and search project is I interact closely with both hiring managers and candidates during the entire process. It’s part of the service component of what I do and an aspect most other so-called recruiters don’t do and, frankly, no longer know how to do. 

 

As a standard practice I always advised candidates whom I represent that they should consider sending a Thank You note, following each interview step. On that occasion, of the four candidates I presented, two of them were women and two were men. After the interviews, the hiring manager commented to me that he’d received Thank You notes from two of the four and although it wasn’t the deciding factor he admitted that it did influence his decisions. One of those two went on to receive the job offer and works for the company today. As an interesting aside, it was the two women who chose to send notes; the men did not. 

 

If you want to know more about what should go into a Thank You note, visit my blog archives and search for 14 January, 2013 entitled: When a Thank You Letter is Not Just for Saying “Thank You”. It can be a powerful tool for one simple reason -- most others don’t do it.