In Sundays paper there was an article about thank you notes. It said 25 % of Human Resource Managers expect an applicant to to email a thank you note for the interview within 2 days.
Nineteen percent want a hard copy to follow.
21 percent want a typed hard copy.
23 percent expect a hand written note.
They should be 3 paragraphs.
1st -Thank you for the opportunity to interview
2nd Remind them of how well you fit and how well you are qualified
3rd Reiterate your interest in the position
Be sure to tailor it to the specific job.
When did it become about Human Resource ass kissing over applying for a job. Is this just a way to cull out applicants ,since there are so many for every job ? Does anybody think this is important in job performance. ? And, since apparently those insisting on careful and complete butt kissing are in the minority, It behooves all applicants to send these letters because you never know which HR s you are dealing with. What a joke.
You give some people a little power, and they will abuse it. It’s HR. It’s anyone else, too.
HR can at least make the excuse/argument that one of the things they’re charged with doing is finding someone who won’t make life miserable for the current employees. Polite people are generally less abrasive than people who aren’t polite. By no means an absolute rule, but certainly one I’d imagine a number of HR types have seen played out before.
I’m not trying to suggest that jumping through hoops to give the HR rep a reach-around should be part of the hiring process. But it’s not surprising to me to see that it’s become so.
I would happily send HR a thank you note after an interview, so long as they would do me the courtesy of contacting me to tell me if I got the job, and if not, why.
This thank you note is a new thing. They will make it a big part of the process because it will make their jobs simpler. It eliminates some of the applicants. If HR says it is an important part of the process they are lying. Five years ago it did not exist. Now it is essential.
I write thank you notes when I interview for a job, but I send it to the person who interviewed me, not HR.
Does that mean that 75% of HR managers don’t want a note, or don’t care?
I don’t know about essential. And it may well be new to you.
But it’s not something that happened just within the past five years.
When I separated from the military in 1994, part of the process is a seminar on job search, resume writing, and interview skills. At that time, it was recommended that one go to each interview with a pre-addressed thank you note, in your briefcase. So that after you got out of the interview you could write the sort of quick note you’d described in the OP, and then mail it off right then and there, before you forgot about it.
ETA: I meant to say, addressed to the person who actually conducted the interview. Or persons, if it was a group.
What he said.
That is the trick of it. You have to act like they all want it or you could be SOL.
Wow. I’ve never written a single thankyou note for an interview. Ever. Nor do I intend to. Especially given how rarely I’ve ever gotten anything from THEM after an interview - it seems that even perfunctory “Sorry” letters are no longer customary.
19% want you to send it twice? Once e-mail and once by snailmail? Who are these people? Secret Social Mavens? Bitter Lonely Failed Socialites?
perfectly said. It’s a two way interview after all.
Wow. I’ve never heard of anything like this until opening this thread. Unfortunately, it does nothing to combat my admittedly biased perception of HR workers as lazy incompetent bastards. I think I’ll stop testing my patients’ samples for cancer unless they come with a handwritten lavender-scented note.
I mean, good hell. It’s HR’s JOB to interview (or arrange interviews). You don’t thank people for doing their job, unless they’ve done it unusually well. Well, OK, you can thank them, but expecting a note? That’s ridiculous.
Six “thank you” letters to the six people who interviewed me separately over four hours? I passed. I still got the job.
I’ll agree - there’s times it’s appropriate, and times it might even help. But you have to play it by ear. Generally when you walk out of an interview, you know if you nailed it, or if you blew it. Letters won’t matter to either of those, but maybe to the ones in the middle.
Thank you letters for an interview? Ha, fck that sht.
I sincerely thank the interviewer at the beginning and end of each phone or in-person conversation. They want more than that, they can hire me first.
Agreed. I’ve never felt the need for anything beyond a verbal “thanksomuchitwasgreat!” after the interview was over, during the goodbye handshakes.
Nowadays I do an email follow-up, typically following on a point discussed in the interview.
The funny thing is that when I am hiring, I try to slot all candidates into the same day. I have made my decision LONG before I ever get your letter, and often before I get your email.
As for the reason why I did NOT hire you? Tough shit. My attorney says that I should not give ANY information. I have no desire to re-open the process when you suddenly discover skills that you did not claim during the interview. Nor do I want any printed evidence that you might use against me in a wrongful hire lawsuit.
I do send letters to anyone who has a face-to-face interview. If you were not called in, however, you won’t get a note from me. I don’t have the time.
When jobs are scarce ,HR will start to get prickier and prickier. They know a thank you note is a dumb idea. They just are looking for ways to make the pile of applicants smaller.
It does help, but I also saw a job offer rescinded after an absolutely atrocious thank-you note was sent. It was so poorly worded that it was obvious that the candidate’s communications skills sucked. The note is a decent test of someone’s ability to communicate through the written word. That skill is lacking among many, and is necessary in many positions. The cover letter is the first test, but the thank-you note is a follow-up test.
I work in HR (not in recruitment, though) and have never heard of this practice. I suspect it would irritate our recruitment team, as just creating more paperwork to be processed and filed. Maybe it’s an American thing, which will mean it’s on it’s way over here.
But it’s ok that no-one likes us. We’re used to it!
Maybe my reading comprehension sucks, but has anyone suggested that you should explain why you didn’t pick a particular candidate? A form letter that informs the applicant that the job has been filled is pretty simple courtesy if there’s been phone contact- after all, don’t you usually say something like “we’ll be back in touch” at the end of a call with an applicant, interview or not?
If you’re just saying that you don’t have the time to send notes to all the yahoos who send in their resumes, that makes sense. If, however you’ve called them and then not decided to interview them, some sort of notice that they can put that file away would be nice.
Of the [counts on toes…] eight or so jobs I’ve applied for in the last year (since graduation- I have a full time job now, which is why I haven’t been too aggressive, just looking for something in my field, plus I may be relocating soon for family reasons) two of them have sent rejection letters. One of these was from a person within the organization with whom I’d had prior dealings, and it was very sweet- that position was a bit of a long-shot anyhow but it was nice to get the letter so I could get on with my summer plans. The more recent one was after a phone interview with a hiring committee. I had sent a thank-you note, mainly because the interview had been unexpectedly pleasant and I wanted to follow up with some thoughts that had occurred to me just after we hung up. I got a note the next week letting me know that they had gone with someone else (I told them I needed 3 weeks to clear up my affairs in my current city and find a place to live in their area, which I knew might be a dealbreaker because the position is crucial to their day-to-day operations and they wanted it filled. right. then. so I assume they went with someone local), and the courtesy the hiring manager displayed has left me feeling really good about the (not-for-profit) organization. I’m planning to do some volunteer work for them next year, in fact!
I’m not bitter towards places that haven’t sent letters, I know how much work it is, but I just don’t see how it can hurt to leave an even halfway-qualified applicant (presumably they’d have to be if you called them) with a good opinion of your organization.