Hello, I wanted to know what to write in a Thank You Letter following an Interview for a job that is still interviewing several other people. What can I said that can make me stand out and be noticed and not be forgotten after they completed the interview process? Today I was the second person after the first person. There were still one after me today and three Weds. and three more Friday?
Well, to be completely honest, keep it brief and check your grammar and spelling much more closely than you did in this post.
Is English your first language?
Some folks don’t like thank you letters, but if you’re going to send them to individual interviewers, you want to write something like “Dear Alan Smithee, Thank you for taking the time to talk to me on Monday. I appreciated hearing about the job,as well as <that other stuff you discussed that I still remember>. Thanks again, and I hope to hear from <company name> soon.”
I think this is better suited to IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Leaffan, can you please explain the grammar and spelling problems, you spoke about. And No English is not my first language.
Colibri, what is IMHO?
Okay Colibri, I found out what IMHO is. Thanks!
You know, I wouldn’t – as someone that’s interviewed in the past I just can’t see a thank you letter making any difference, and the potential to shoot yourself in the foot is high.
But things may be different wherever you are in the world, and particularly if you’re interviewing for a small company. If you double check your spelling, grammar, etc it probably can’t do much harm.
So, given that, go with what others have said. Keep it very short, say thanks for the time and make sure you get their name right – if you don’t personally know their name I really wouldn’t send a letter.
Include something relevant from the interview, and this is your chance to remind them of whatever key skill you think will get you the job. Off the top of my head something like: “Given my previous experience in X I was particularly interested in the Y aspects of the position, thank you for taking the time to discuss that with me”. That’s not great, maybe someone can do that better.
So, make it short, make it personal, take the chance to show why you’re unique. If you don’t think you can do that I’d probably not bother sending the letter.
And good luck with it.
Tough call. Some HR depts will toss your resume for doing so (“too pushy”) others will toss your resume for not doing so (“rude”). I think a email might be a workable solution.
“Hello. I want to know what to include in a “Thank You” letter following an interview for a job (that is still in the interview process). What can I say that would make me stand out and be noticed- as opposed to being forgotten after the interview? I was the second person interviewed today. There was one other after me on the same day, three Wednesday and three more Friday.”
My email would say something like: “Thank you so much for the interview yesterday. I hope to hear from you soon!” or like Maserschmidt sez.
Mind you, I am no expert on this.
Send them a hand-written letter by snail mail.
- Restate why you’re perfect (used the stuff you learned in the interview)
- Say you want the job
- Spell check, grammar check
Kind of like:
Thank you for meeting with me today to discuss my qualifications for xyz. As stated in the interview, I am a great fit for this role because of A, B and C. After hearing more about the job during the interview, I very interested in working with you at McCompany and can start in 2 weeks. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
You will stand out simply by having taken the time and postage stamp to send a thank-you letter. At least, that’s my experience.
Glory pretty much has the format right. Given that you are not a native speaker of English, you might do well to ask a friend who is to review your syntax, and make appropriate edits.
You have a pervasive tense problem (a seemingly overwhelming desire to put verbs in the past tense) and nonstandard capitalization.
Hello, I want[del]ed[/del] to know what to write in a [del]Thank You Letter[/del] thank you letter following an [del]I[/del]interview for a job that is still interviewing several other people. What can I [del]said[/del] say that can make me stand out**,** [del]and[/del] be noticed**,** and not be forgotten after they complete[del]d[/del] the interview process? Today I was the second person [del]after the first person[/del] interviewed. There [del]were still one after me today and three Weds. and three more Friday?[/del] are still seven candiates scheduled to be interviewed before Friday.
- (wanted) Incorrect use of past tense. You want it right now, not sometime in the past. Although some people would formulate it this way while speaking (usually saying, “I just wanted to know”), it isn’t correct formal English. This is probably your least significant error though.
- (Thank You Letter, Interview) English doesn’t capitalize nouns like this. It looks very childish.
- (said) Again, it is something you want to do in the future, you haven’t done it yet so “said” is the wrong tense.
- (a and b and c) Better to use a comma- separated list than a whole chain of "and"s. While not strictly incorrect, it is childish sounding style.
- (Completed) incorrect use of past tense again. This action will happen in the future. You could also say “have completed.”
- (second person after the first) If you were second, you were obviously after the first. The second part of the sentence is redundant.
- (were still one…) This whole sentence is hard to understand and close to being nonsense the way you wrote it. Stick to the key fact (there are seven interviews left) and it’s a lot clearer.
Hello, I want to know what to write in a thank you letter following an interview for a job that is still interviewing several other people. What can I say that can make me stand out, be noticed, and not be forgotten after they complete the interview process? Today I was the second person interviewed. There are still seven candiates scheduled to be interviewed before Friday.
In my humble opinion, better to avoid step one than go too far with it.
The purpose of a thank you note is not taking advantage of a chance to cram some more self-praise down the throats of the interviewer. Believe me, if you are a good fit for the job, they’ll remember you and why you’re a good fit. If you’re a marginal fit, a thank you note won’t make much difference as far as convincing them, but it can make you seem pushy.
What a thank-you note can do is show that you can be both polite and personally engaging in a business setting. And politeness requires not praising yourself too much; instead briefly thank the interviewer; if there was some personal chit-chat that is worth (briefly) following up on (“And good luck with your tomatoes this year.”), that’s OK, but stay away from talking about yourself very much.
I think the only exception is if something came up at the interview that wasn’t resolved at the time, and you can resolve it now.
Perhaps obviously, I think thank-you letters matter more for sales or other jobs based significantly on intrapersonal relations, and much less for technical positions.
I think the OP was talking about an email.
And has anyone here actually worked for an HR department or as a hiring manager and “tossed a resume” because they sent a thank you?
Here’s the deal with the interview process at any company I’ve been at. The interview team has decided on you by the end of the day, and often right after your interview ended. So by the time you send your thank you, it’s probably too late to matter anyway.
At worst we will snicker a bit because “thank you” notes sort of make the candidate look like an over-eager college grad applying for their first job.
It’s much mroe effective to wait a week or so and send a follow up email to see what the status is. Contrary to popular belief, the hiring process at most companies is hardly a well oiled precision machine. And HR often has little input in the actual decision making process.
In the 12 years I’ve worked in my current department, we have had exactly one applicant send thank you letters to the individuals who interviewed him. Almost everyone who received the letter found it very off-putting (just the act of there being a letter, no one had comments on the contents of the letter), and, as he was an on-the-bubble candidate anyway, the letter eliminated him from consideration.
Send a thank you email, not snail-mail letter. Letter takes too long, but an email can arrive the same day. I think the thank you email is a requirement. I’ve absolutely tossed a borderline resume because their lack of email thank you was the proverbial straw.
Your goal isn’t to stand out and be remembered but to:
- show you understand how to complete a process fully
- follow social norms, and
- not be the only person who didn’t email
I have an interview on Monday, and I was planning to send my thank-yous via strippergram (male or female as appropriate to the recipient).
Too much?
OTOH, he DID say he wants to stand out. Maybe the nonstandard capitalizations and tense usage will help him do that…
Waitaminute, email is more of a social norm than snail mail for a thank-you note? :eek:
Holy fuck.
Western civilization is over. Somebody turn out the lights.
Are we only talking one stripper? If so, seems OK to me.
Anyhow even too many strippers would be better than a thank you note. I have been on panels interviewing for 20 odd years and have never seen one. Which is a good thing because most Aussie interviewers I talk to would be creeped out by one.