Brand Love Hate

Don't Send Thank-you Notes

One of the most dangerous things a job seeker can do after an interview is send a thank-you note or letter.  After already opening yourself up to an employer, you're creating another opportunity for criticism, but this time you have no control of the situation, and no opportunity to answer.  While the purported benefits of the thank-you note include letting the employer know you want the job, I think the risks outweigh the benefits.  A recruiter or hiring manager may think you're great, but a terrible thank-you note could change his or her mind very quickly, or at least call into question whether you are the best candidate.  I also highly doubt that a strong thank-you note ever helped someone overcome a lackluster interview, so if you had a good conversation with a company, why risk it?  Here are some of the problems I have seen, almost all of which warrant removing the candidate from the list of finalists:

• Having typographical and/or grammatical errors
• Using IM language ("u" instead of "you," "ur" instead of "you are")
• Misunderstanding the job, the product or the company
• Becoming a rambling mess and/or bringing up unrelated topics

If you must write a thank-you note or letter, it must be 100 percent error-free.  It has to kick butt.  It has to make you look better than you did in the interview, not worse.  Not even a little bit worse.  So if you are brave and want to take this risk, spend time on it - even sleep on it before sending.  And keep it very short and to the point - many of the examples I've looked at online are way too long.  Here's my stab:

Susan:

Thanks for taking time to meet with me today - I know you're incredibly busy.  It was great to learn more about the Account Manager position.  Based on what you shared, I feel like I would be a good fit and could really contribute to your team.  Please let me know if I can answer any additional questions.

Thanks again for your time,

Jason

I'm not saying it's perfect (I'm saying don't do this at all), but it meets my new criteria for these things:

1. Short
2. No errors
3. No new topics

Let me know if I'm crazy, or if you have any other good examples.

New Series of Posts - The Job Search

I have been hiring a lot recently and, along the way, have seen a number of things that job seekers think are good ideas, yet those decisions have not helped them at all.  I wanted to share the details because my thoughts generally go against the job search advice I seem to find on the Web and at campus career centers.  So I basically want to find out if I'm crazy.  Also, I'm hopeful that some of it - even if you choose to do the opposite - will prove helpful.  I'm going to tag the posts with "job search" so you can find them all and judge for yourself.