Your Next Life — Good Manners Make a Difference
Jul 21 2008
In a recent survey of human resources professionals, 43 percent reported they interview four to six candidates to fill one open position. Of the respondents to this survey, 13 percent reported interviewing 10 or more candidates just to fill a single position. This can add up to a lot of interviews every week, so it’s not surprising that hiring managers might forget some of the attributes and experiences of a particular candidate. But, you can jog a hiring manager’s memory — and show good business etiquette — by saying thank you to the people you meet in the interview process.
Well written and personalized thank-you notes offer the opportunity for you to reiterate your best qualities and to more thoroughly explain how your skills, experiences, and connections make you a good fit for a particular position. Thank-you notes also allow you to demonstrate your listening skills by elaborating on a topic discussed during the interview or by enclosing a copy of an article or essay that might be relevant to something you talked about with key staff members.
The most effective thank-you notes are sent via snail mail immediately following the interview to everyone you met during the interview process. Accordingly, always ask whomever is interviewing you for a business card. If it’s not possible to get a card or you have a group interview where there’s insufficient time to exchange business cards, then it might be possible to get contact information from front office staff assistants. If e-mail contact information is all that’s available, send the thank-you note electronically. But be careful about sending the same cursory thank-you note to multiple staff members; thank-you notes often are forwarded to staffing managers, so you don’t want to send the same note to multiple executives.
Finally, thank-you notes provide the opportunity to clarify fuzzy facts or expand on an item of discussion that could have been misinterpreted or misunderstood. Think of the thank-you note as a closing paragraph to the interview discussion, and use it to highlight your best qualities, express gratitude for the opportunity to be considered, and add an exclamation point to your interest in the position.
About the author: Jim Carman is a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management and a retired Navy Captain. He writes and lectures on career transition topics.
