Thank you, thank you very much

thank youDo you send a thank you note or email after a job interview?

There are pros and cons with sending a quick thank you note or email after an interview:

Pro: The good thing about sending a thank you note is that it not only shows your professionalism but it can also help to keep you top of mind with the hiring manager who may have interviewed a dozen or more people for the job and can quickly forgot who’s who. In this case, keeping yourself fresh in the mind of the hiring manager is good and can pay off. This is opposed to other job candidates who are perhaps indistinguishable and who don’t follow up after the interview and quickly become forgotten.

Con: When you send a thank you note or email that contains spelling and/or grammatical errors, it can actually hurt you more than it helps. Perhaps you send a note and try to make a joke or be cute and end up giving the wrong impression. Sometimes it’s hard to convey emotion correctly in an email and if you give the reader the wrong idea, it can hurt you.

Working in IT recruitment, I deal with many people who either aren’t particularly good at writing and in many cases, don’t have particularly strong English skills specifically. On a few occasions, I’ve had candidates who have emailed me first asking if it’s alright to send a quick thank you note to my client that they just interviewed with and in many of these cases, the email they were planning on sending was full of grammatical and/or spelling errors that at least I was able to help them correct before having them send the email to the person who interviewed them.

Emails are a form of writing just like your resume and cover letter and they are samples of your communication skills and specifically your ability to communicate in written form. When sending a thank you letter or email after an interview, it can also serve as an indication of your professionalism and tact or if you send one with errors and mistakes, your lack thereof.

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