The article says some EXPECT a hand written note. That implies much more than it is merely polite or optional. With that in mind it becomes a necessity to write them in all circumstances because you never know what kind of tight ass you have run into.
That’s the thing: “common courtesy” is such bullshit. It’s sent for a purpose – and being nice isn’t it.
How does that make it a necessity? If 75% don’t care, why is it necessary to placate the other 25%? Dudley Garrett is demonstrating that you never know what type of tight-ass you’re going to run into – maybe it will be one who despises you have having followed up with a note and automatically knocks you out of the running. You can’t please everybody; you just have to do what you personally think it effective. If you can’t choke out a thank-you note of feel like by sending one you’ve emasculated yourself, then don’t send it. If you think it’s a good idea that some people are likely to appreciate, and those who don’t probably won’t care either way – my view – then send it.
Waah. Be a man, suck it up, and send the damn letter and stop whining about it like a six year-old being asked to turn off Spongebob to make the bed.
Engineer here. I wore pants and a shirt. With clunky black work shoes.
Oh and I wear jeans to work every day. Usually with t-shirts.
We are not expected to dress like we’re going to a wedding here in my software company.
I’m a software engineer (degree in computer engineering), and if all I ever did was follow the status quo, there would be no development happening. My entire job is to create shit that did not exist until I made it exist.
Stuffing me into a suit and forcing me to sit at a desk all day doing the status quo doesn’t really work that well.
You realize that with engineering a lot of the time we’re talking about problems that have never been solved before, right? There’s no checklist for designing a completely new enterprise application.
This isn’t tech support, or troubleshooting shit that someone else designed, prototyped, built and put into production.
I don’t know if I’m misunderstanding you or you misunderstood me, but we’re in complete agreement here.
I was agreeing with you.
Me and my killer coding ninja monkey.
Some of us manage to do that and follow common social mores. Who knew?
Does *the monkey * wear a suit?
Clothes. Pants and a shirt.
What is wrong with you? you are demanding that applicants conform to your ideas of non conformity. What bullshit.
I gather you feel that sending a thank-you is convincing evidence that this is not the case? As a technical person who sits in front of a monitor all day figuring out problems, I find that hypothesis quite dubious.
“Independent thinker” ~= “nonconformist”.
He’s not saying they do. He’s just saying, by God, if he’s going to hire someone incompetent he may as well hire the one who designed a mechanical giraffe stimulator.
I don’t say this often, but I agree completely with DudleyGarrett.
Thank you notes in general are one of the dumbest things “polite society” has ever come up with, but including them in the job interview process is just ridiculous.
But that isn’t what he said - he didn’t just say “I think someone who doesn’t hire someone who fails to send a thank you note is an idiot.” Had he said that, I would have been in a certain amount of agreement. He said that he would not hire someone who did send a thank you note. And that is plain idiotic.
Just to be clear - I am NOT in HR, I just happen to hire (and fire and interview) a lot of people. Software engineers among them, BTW.
I would never run a candidate through HR, they get to see HR AFTER they are hired to get the paperwork filed, and to sign off on all of the various company plans.
But there is a kind of idiot’s logic to it. Those that would send just a “thank you note” are probably pretty aware they have no shot at the job and this is a last ditch effort to get the company to remember them.
But those that send a followup email/letter asking about the position and closing with “Thanks for interviewing me!” probably performed better in the interview to begin with.
I don’t really know. He has mastered the art of invisibility.
And most of the ‘paperwork’ that they want to have filled out is a complete waste of everyone’s time. Having me fill out a generic job application with things like ‘What is your desired hourly rate of pay?’ and once again collecting my name, address and telephone number (which are on my resume) is a pointless exercise that exists only to justify the fact that HR exists.
Shit, I signed up for my benefits online. It took 10 minutes, and I was directed to a website run not by my company, but by the insurance company. using an alphanumeric identifier and my employee number. Same with my retirement plan.
I still had to listen to HR drone on endlessly about how they need a valid address for my paycheck to go to and so I need to fill out the application. Hint, it’s on my W-4, which payroll has in their hands.
Seriously, HR should just fuck off in the corner and well call if we need 'em.
And they should change the name back to Personnel. The entire idea of ‘human resources’ reminds me of fucking Soylent Green.
I understand your point, and used to share it. Then I got sued by a motherfucking waste of human resource bitch who decided that the reason she did not get a promotion was that I hate women. Lucky for us, we had all the information we needed in HR’s crap pile to not only fire the bitch, but also take away all bennies, deferred bonuses, and accrued vacation.
HR paperwork was created by the devil of lawsuits. Having had it cover my ass, I know happily tolerate it.
A lot of it COULD be improved in terms of data entry, I agree. However, that software costs a chunk of change and smaller firms (like my current one) are still stuck on dead tree versions for record keeping.
You should get inti HR. It would suit you.