1 Reason You Didn't Get the Job
Have you ever left an interview and thought - 'wow I nailed it. I totally got that job' only to be disappointed that an offer was never made? Here's one reason why you didn't get the job…
Something as simple as a thank you note can make or break your chances. Thank you notes have become part of the evaluation process. When I worked in a corporate setting years ago, we sat around a large conference room to discuss and eventually decide on a candidate to hire. When a really close decision had to be made, it often came down to the contents of the finalists' thank you notes. Notice I didn't say whether or not one of them wrote a thank you note but rather who wrote the better thank you note.
In this corporate setting, I vividly remember one of the directors who had made their decision and was eager to hire one of the candidates that he interviewed. The minute she left the building he told me that she was the one he wanted to hire. He assumed her thank you note would make its way to his inbox by the end of the day but it didn't. He waited a few days and eventually assumed that the candidate must have mailed a handwritten note. After 10 days, the director called the candidate to tell her how impressed he was by her and wondered why she hadn't written a thank you note. She told him that she forgot.
In a role that requires followups and literal messages thanking individuals and institutions for their generosity, a thank you note should have been a no brainer. It goes without saying that she was not offered a job.
Writing a thank you note can really set you apart from your competition and should only take a few minutes of your time. If you want the job, I highly recommend writing a quick thank you note to the person or people that you interviewed with. It shows:
You're gracious
You're proactive
You're truly interested in the role
You value the hiring manager and the company's time
You remember who you spoke with
You know how to find contact information
You can write
You're polite
It also gives you an opportunity to address or add anything that you might have forgotten during the interview. This is your chance to close the deal and make yourself stand out.
Here are my tips to write a solid thank you note after an interview:
Do your research before your interview so that you know who you're speaking with
Jot down some notes during the interview and be sure that you catch everyone's name that you speak with
After the interview, write down a few things that you spoke about or stood out to you during the interview
Also, make a note of anything else that you wish you said but forgot or just thought of (happens to everyone!)
Find their contact information or send all of the thank you notes to your HR contact and ask them to forward the individual notes (the above is more impressive)
Keep it brief and concise!
Image: Aaron Burden on Unsplash