I always send thank-you notes typed up on the same paper as my cover letter and resume. We had a candidate who sent handwritten notes on flowery blank cards from Hallmark; I appreciated that he sent them (I had driven him around to the interviews, etc.) but again, I would have picked a more professional format.
Zombie notes work best.
This +1. Fairly or unfairly, my impression is that most thank you notes I’ve received were from less-than-impressive candidates, and the extra try-hard from the note never did anything to move them out of the “probably not” category.
I suppose it’s also appropriate to send a thank you note to your ESL teacher, too.
I dunno… Sending a thank you is one thing. Sending a thank you with reminders about why you’re so good for this job seems to be quite another. Why does it not tell the interviewer “I’m sending this note not to thank you, but to prod you some more about hiring me, but I’m cynically pretending you won’t realize this”?
Almost certainly botspam and reported (posted so there’s not a deluge of reports)
I’ve got interview #4 with a company tomorrow and I certainly sent a thank you email to each person I’ve already spoken with, whether it was in person or on the phone.
A recruiter told me that the only thing wrong with a handwritten thank you note is that it takes too long to get there with how fast some companies move. I see where he’s coming from - yesterday was interview #3, I sent the thank you when I got home, and they called this am to schedule for tomorrow. I don’t expect to have enough time to send a handwritten note after tomorrow’s interview either - I fully expect to either get an offer or a no thank you by either Friday or Monday.
I’m in the ‘always send a thank you email’ camp. I’m not sure how a short, polite thank you can ever hurt unless you are explicitly told not to contact them and that they’d contact you.
I vote for sending a thank-you note by whatever means the prior contacts were made. That is, if you e-mailed your resume, and the interview was set up via e-mail then the thank-you should be e-mailed. If you send a hard-copy resume then you should send a hard-copy thank you.
As an employer, I tend to favor those who send thank-you notes. When I’ve interviewed several people, all equally appropriate for the job, I want to hire the one who demonstrates that they were paying attention, can remember details from the interview and seems enthusiastic about actually doing the job, just as I would favor someone who dresses appropriately.
I had an interview back in January that was my first group interview. None of the interviewers provided me with business cards or contact information, so I asked the HR representative who had arranged the interview if I could send a thank you email and how to do so. He suggested I send one email to him and he would distribute it to the panel.
I felt a bit silly sending a thank you that was all about me and how great I was. So I wrote a note stating how I appreciated the interview and then added a paragraph for each person on the panel describing how something they had said impressed me and reinforced my interest in the company. I didn’t throw idle praise at the panel. I was very careful to include something meaningful for each person.
As it turned out, the position I interviewed for wasn’t a good fit. However, they were so impressed by my interview and my follow up note that the restructured the position so that they could bring me in.
I’ve been in the new job for a month now, and I love it. In many ways, it’s my dream job. I knew that in the interviews and I wasn’t going to let it slip away without doing everything I could. It would have been very easy to forego the thank you note since it was a panel interview and I didn’t get their contact information. But, as mentioned, I wanted to send something really meaningful to my interviewers and keep myself in consideration.
No, because the point of the note is not just to thank the interviewers for their time, but to emphasize that one is still interested in the position. Refering to issues specific to the job indicates the note is not a form-note.
Really hand-written? Pen, ink, all that? I would never send a hand-written thank you note for a job.
If I really want the job, I send an email, followed up by a hard-copy snail mail.
Zombie threads usually make me go: “Ughh, another zombie thread.”
But with this one, I want to know if the OP ever got one of those jobs, and if it was with an entity that he had sent multiple thank you notes to.
Nah, I never got one of them, but I never bothered to send the notes. As I pointed out, my interviews were with a bunch of sullen bureaucrats, and, while I excel at self abasement and apple polishing, I usually can smell when somebody detests my very being, so, no note! And, subsequently, no job!
I did the next best thing, though. My brother got me a job!
Best wishes,
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Same here. We generally decide whether we want to hire somebody within a few minutes after they leave. Hiring somebody has never had anything to do with sending thank-you notes, and the people who do send them are (usually) less impressive. Also tend to have a tendency to be stalkerish… We’ve had some problems with people not wanting to take “no” for an answer.
Yeah. The reason I asked the recruiter is a friend of mine mentioned she always sends a handwritten note after interviews, which made me wonder if I should be doing that. The recruiter said it was a nice touch but too slow.
As always, it depends on the corporate culture. As seen by the responses here it really varies. I feel like if I can’t figure that out and act accordingly, that company is not going to be the right place for me.
I can assure you that most people would think you did not know the diference between a dinner party and a job interview if you sent in a hand-written note.
Recruiters will tell you the newest theory about how to get a job, but it is theory.
I would assume your internet was down.