The holiday season is upon us, with family, food, and festive decorations (my wife has a fiber-optic snowman she plugs into her desktop USB, and I’m sure it will be reappearing soon). It is also a time, as the leftover turkey now chilling in your fridge might remind you, for thanks. With that in mind, let’s talk briefly about an aspect of writing during a job hunt that we haven’t yet discussed: the thank you letter.
If you’ve been fortunate enough, in your job search, to obtain a face-to-face interview, it is considered appropriate (and appreciative) to send the person who interviewed you a thank you letter. While it probably won’t tip the scales in your direction, a thank you letter can be a good way to reinforce your professionalism, and the courtesy with which you’d treat your future coworkers.
Here are three quick tips to keep in mind when writing a thank you letter.
3. Be Brief
Thank you letters, like almost all business letters, should never be more than one page. In this case, they probably shouldn’t be more than a few sentences. You don’t want to take too much of the interviewer’s time — just enough to remind them of who you are, and what your interview was like. Begin simply by, well, thanking them, but don’t be too flowery about it.
Most people can tell if you’re being over-the-top, and statements like “I can’t believe you were all so friendly! That was the best interview I’ve ever had” might distract from your sincerity. Just a quick expression of gratitude is all that is really needed.
2. Be Specific
After you’ve gone through the basic pleasantries, follow them up by referencing some memorable moment in the interview that you felt went especially well. Ideally, it will be something professionally related — don’t remind the interviewer of the clothes you were wearing, or that you both grew up in Missouri or something equally trivial. Just pick out some specific incident that the interviewer(s) seemed to find compelling and subtly remind them of it. For example: “I especially enjoyed hearing about your plans to expand into another building soon.”
This might also be a good occasion to reference some way you can see yourself contributing to the company. People often forget that interviews go two ways — you’re interviewing a potential company as much as they’re interviewing you. What did you learn/see/hear at the interview that makes you want to work with them? What excited you about this job?
A thank you letter should not be the time, however, for simply repeating your technical qualifications — a potential employer, by now, will have all the information that they need on that front. The thank you letter is a chance to reinforce who you’d be as a co-worker, not as a technical expert.
In other news, be sure to be genuine when you write these (not that I think you’ll have a problem with that). Most recipients get turned off by the sense that a thank you letter — which on the surface at least is a generous thing — might actually be self-serving. So be specific, but please also be sincere.
1. Be Patient
Finally, be sure a reasonable amount of time (at least a day) goes by before you send the thank you note. I’ve heard tales of people sending thank you emails to potential employers as soon as they — the job-seekers — get to their cars in the parking lot, sometimes after only a few minutes have passed following the interview.
This over-eager urgency undercuts the sentiment, since you’re sending the thank you note before you’ve possibly had enough time to digest and reflect upon the interview itself. Additionally, it’s close to being rude: it’s entirely possible your interviewer is now busy talking with someone else, and you don’t want to be an interruption.
Patience is a virtue here, so give the interview some time to simmer.
How to Write a Thank You Letter
For the record, there is no universal method to present a thank you letter. Whether you’re writing an email, a professionally formatted letter, or a hand-written note, the basic structure and content can be the same. Just pick the form that seems the most in keeping with your persona as an employee, and the attitude you saw when visiting the company
As always, you can find more advice about resumes and job hunting every Friday in our IT Career Help Section, as well as through our step-by-step resume guide. As you continue your job search, we hope these resources get you one step closer to having something else to be thankful for.
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