The Interview Isn’t Over Until You’ve Sent a Thank You Note

When you get home or before you go to bed the night of your interview, send a thank-you note to each person with whom you met. If you do not have individual email addresses, ask the recruiter to forward your messages, but ideally send a unique thank you note to each person on the panel. Try to personalize it a bit with something you learned about them. Below are a few examples of thank you messages. Send these via email because companies may have decided on their top candidate by the time, they get a mailed thank-you note.

Dear Laura,

Thank you for spending so much of your valuable time with me this afternoon discussing the TITLE. I remain excited about the opportunity to join COMPANY and feel like we would be strong business partners. It is clear that we would work hand in hand on SUBJECTS. In addition, we seem to approach leadership and management similarly, so it would be nice to have a thought-partner in additional areas of project management and continuous improvement.

Dear Jose,

It was so nice to meet and speak with you today. Thank you for taking the time to discuss the ROLE. We had quite a bit of time together, but I know that additional questions come up following interviews at times, so I am happy to answer any additional questions you or the team might have. All my conversations and interactions with the organization have been positive and inspiring. To still be considered as a finalist for this important role is an honor, and I do hope to be working with you in the coming weeks. Good luck to your son in that baseball tournament this weekend!

Thank you again for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you next week.

Dear Sean,

Thank you for spending this afternoon with me to discuss the POSITION. We spoke about several of my experiences in leadership development from needs assessment to execution. If time permitted, there were more examples I could have offered on the 70–20–10 model of learning, which I find highly applicable to leadership development.

In our discussion, you asked about the recent books I have read. In addition to the Power of Moments and Switch, I have also read Radical Candor this year, which you might enjoy as the leadership team thinks about performance management. When I am not at work or on a soccer sideline, I usually have a book in hand.

Our conversation this afternoon deepened my interest in the organization, and I look forward to hearing more. Thank you again for your valuable time. (See what I did there?)

You can learn more about how to compete and win in today’s job market with our Job Search Playbook.