Ep 29 - When to Send a Thank You Note

Last week, we talked about how important it is to send a thank you note. In this week’s episode, I want to talk about when to send a thank you note. 

Find the full show notes for this episode at RecoveringCorpoholics.com/29. 

Sending a thank you note is an opportunity to show your gratitude for someone and their time. In addition, it shows that you take time out of your day to appreciate people and express that you care.  

We all know (hopefully!) how important it is to say thank you after a job interview with a hiring manager. But what about all those other steps in the job interview process? What about networking or just casual conversations?

As we learned last week, only 25% of people at most even send a thank you note after an interview so in this week’s episode, I want to go over all the opportunities you have to send a thank you note in the career space to make an impression and land that job.. 

The Formal Interview

I will start with the most common answer, an interview! And I am not just talking about the final interview with the person who says ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to hiring you. I am talking about sending a Thank you to everyone that you are in contact with throughout the entire process. 

Talk to someone who is just scheduling the interview, send a thank you note. Talk to the recruiter quickly, send a thank you note. Talk to the hiring manager, definitely send a thank you note. 

Some might think it’s not necessary to send a thank you note to everyone, and even a waste of time, but let me tell you, all of the people in the process talk and if you want to be remembered as someone who goes the extra mile. 

And honestly, even though you want to show people you care, it’s also important to just care! You want to be someone who is thoughtful and wants people to know that they are appreciated. 

Now the thank you notes to the people earlier in the process don’t need to be as detailed as the final interview Thank You, but they do need to be thoughtfully done. 

For example, it's not: Dear X, Thanks for scheduling the interview. Best, X. It’s Dear X, Thank you for taking the time to schedule the interview for the X position with me. I am grateful for your time to do this for me and excited about the opportunity. Looking forward to the interview with X on xyz, Best X

See the difference?

And just a quick tip, if any of the interview process is done over the phone, always ensure to ask for the person's name and their email address. Not having someone’s email is not an excuse to not send a thank you note!

Informational Interviews

The next topic I want to talk about where you should send Thank you notes are after information interviews. FYI, I did a deep dive on everything you want to know about information interviews. To listen to that episode, go to RecoveringCorpoholics.com/26. 

An information interview is an opportunity to connect with someone to learn more about a specific area of interest to you. 

Information interviews are helpful as it allows you to take your research to the next level and learn from someone who is actually doing what you want to do.

Now, you can do these informal interviews with anyone, peers, people in positions you want to be in, however, you should still send a thank you note to anyone you talked to, even if you didn’t like them or like what they had to say.

And it doesn’t have to be as drawn out as a formal interview thank you note. It just needs to be ...

FIND THE FULL SHOW NOTES HERE.