It’s been months of sending out resumes, millions of hours spent looking at job postings, and way too many hours of semi watching Judge Judy while you bang your head into a wall hoping for someone, anyone to call you back. But finally, you get a call to sent up an interview for your dream job. You put on “Jump On It” and do a happy dance before you get to work planning every second out from now until your interview. It’s an exciting time isn’t it? Exciting and a little nerve racking but you motivate yourself, (maybe call your career coach to have them pump you up before the big day) and put a million reminders in your phone so you don’t forget.
The big interview day comes and you dress to impress, have your resume in your bag and head out to make things happen. You get to the interview, prepare a couple minutes in your car as you wait to go in, and then, put on that million dollar smile and walk in. You do everything perfectly the whole way in and make some great small talk with the hiring manager and then absolutely nail the interview. You do great and you hit it off with everyone you meet. You say your goodbyes and head back home, feeling like a billion dollars. You wake up the next morning still feeling like a billion bucks and decide to head to the beach to celebrate the amazing interview. There’s just one problem, you forget to do this one, extremely important thing:
SEND A THANK YOU EMAIL!!!!!
According to TopResume.com 1 in 3 candidates don’t send a thank you email after an interview, which I think is insane. Even crazier, 7 percent of people say they’ve NEVER sent one, which is borderline psychotic. If you’re interested, you can read the rest of their article on Thank You notes here. But You can really screw yourself over if you either forget, or just blow off sending a thank you email. It really isn’t a big time consuming thing so I’m not sure why someone wouldn’t do it or make sure they remember. If a hiring manager is between you and another candidate and you decided to go to the beach and forget to send them a thank you, and the other person sends them a nice little email, take a stab at who’s going to be getting the call back. The answer is definitely not you. It really just comes down to showing you care. It also gives you one last chance to at least make a quick case as to why you’re the best person for the job.
WHEN TO SEND A THANK YOU
Now don’t stress too much about when to send it because there’s no exact time that is the magic answer. If you have a morning interview, if you want to send a thank you at the end of the day that’s definitely find (especially if it’s on a Friday). If it’s later in the day you can send one first thing in the morning. Again it doesn’t have to be the length of a Harry Potter book, maybe a few pages less…just kidding…we’re talking like less than a paragraph. Definitely make sure you send it within 24 hours of your interview though. If the person you’re interviewing with happens to be in the older generation that received actually mailed letters, that could be a nice touch too. If you’re younger than like 30 and don’t know how to send a letter in the mail, I’m sure Youtube will take you step by step on how to do it.
But please, you put in so much effort to get the interview don’t ruin your chances by not sending a thank you. Now I know there’s some of you that are probably saying, “Hey I actually got the job WITHOUT one”. Well to that I say I’ve also won some money on scratch offs and blackjack so people do get lucky sometimes. Unless you can leave me some legitimate reasons in the comment section to not send a thank you, then take the five minutes and type one out. Now go out there and get that job.
The Workin' Parent 