reCareered: Top 3 Ways To Write A Thank You Note

Friday, May 25, 2007

Top 3 Ways To Write A Thank You Note - page 2

What The Typical Thank You Note Includes:

While the thank you note that most candidates send isn't ideal, it's important to understand what most candidates include and what they don't include. The typical thank you note includes:

A sincere thank you for time spent
Reminder of skills (sometimes)
Reaffirmation of interest

What An Effective Thank You Note Should Always Include:

Let's contrast what to include at a minimum to increase it's impact. Remember, being polite is a nice side benefit. The real purpose of your thank you note is to give you another opportunity to remind the interviewer why you would make a great employee for the company. To accomplish this, your thank you note should include:

Person's name
Write one to each person you talked to, no matter what level of the organization. You can leave out the front desk person (unless they were included in a formal interview).
Identify the hiring manager's most important problem (that you can solve). If you don't know the answer to this, you didn't research deeply enough nor ask the right questions. Either way, if you don't know the answer to this question, you've got no chance here - so learn and move on to the next target company
Remind the hiring manager how you have already solved that problem. There's an important distinction here ... just saying you can solve the problem doesn't inspire that much confidence. Giving an example of how you've already solved a similar problem delivers a high level of confidence. Also, if the problem you've already solved isn't important to the hiring manager, again you'll want to learn from your mistakes and move on - you're probably not going to get hired because you can solve the problem of dull pencil tips.
Commonalities - If there was a common interest (fishing, golf) discussed in the interview, mention it (extremely short phrase) just to remind the interviewer who you were. If it wasn't discussed, the thank you note isn't a good place to bring it up.
Ask about next steps (or confirm next steps if defined during the interview). If these weren't already defined by the end of the interview - shame on you. Here's your chance to redeem yourself. Try to close the deal and ask what the next steps are.
Reaffirm interest - Stay short of asking for the job in a thank you note, but definitely let the company know you're very interested in learning more.
Re-thank