When was the last time you wrote a thank you letter?
I was immensely proud watching our daughter write her Thank You letters to family and friends that had sent her monetary gifts and thoughtful trinkets celebrating her graduation from High School last month.
I let her pick out the cards, and she addressed them all herself, along with a thoughtful – related – message inside. We popped them in the mail.
She didn’t fuss about writing them. She knew from past experience, and all the thank you cards she had written as a young child to family and friends after birthday parties, that it was the right thing to do. She could have called them, and that worked well for relatives, but for family friends, a handwritten card always carried extra weight and sometimes shock value.
In the almost 11 years that I have been in business as Founder and CEO of A Platinum Resume and Career Services, educating clients, teaching workshops, developing trainings, crafting strategic resumes and career documents, and helping students develop their own resume writing businesses, I have stressed the importance of the Thank You letter.
A Cover Letter is an introduction with a ‘please consider me for an interview’ statement embedded in the verbiage it is only fitting that you close that loop with a ‘thank you for the interview.’
Writing a thank you letter/note enables you to thank the hiring manager/panel/team for their time and the opportunity they gave you to interview for the role. Some hiring managers expect a thank you letter, while others are shocked to get one.
When you write a succinctly crafted thank you letter, you leverage the opportunity to reiterate your interest in the position, restate your qualifications, and ‘remind’ them of your interview conversation. All great things!
When to send your handwritten or email thank you letter – no more than 24 hours after the interview.
What to include in your thank you letter:
- Personalized greeting and thank you statement
- Exact job title you interviewed for (they may have met with a lot of candidates)
- Words of appreciation
- Quick overview of your qualifications
- Interest in the position and expectation of next steps
- Contact information
Pro tip: Craft your thank you letter (template) right before the interview, fill in details about the interview right after (when it's still fresh in your mind) and send it within 24 hours.
Check out these two sample Thank You Letters - quick note or detailed letter
Short and sweet
Hi Ms. Smith,
Thank you so much for meeting with me today regarding the _xyz__ position. It was such a pleasure to learn more about the __xyz__ role, and I’m very excited about the opportunity to join such a dynamic and innovative team.
I look forward to hearing from you about next steps. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if I can provide any additional information.
Respectfully,
[Your Name]
Detailed and thoughtful
Hi Mr. Jones,
I just wanted to thank you and the panel for inviting me to interview for the _________ position. It was great to hear about ___xyz company’s objectives for the next quarter/year and how I might contribute to successfully achieving those robust goals. I was excited to hear that I would be [something you remember from the interview related to job responsibilities/duties] (this shows that you were listening).
I really admire the humanitarian causes that __xyz__ supports, which align with my values of - paying it forward. I look forward to the opportunity to collaborate with your team to implement some of the progressive ideas we discussed.
Please let me know if there is anything else you need from me.
Sincerely,
Drop me a comment with how you feel about Thank You Letters...
What to do next:
1. Dust off your resume – and update it!
2. Create a new resume or contact us to have one created
for you – www.aplatinumresume.com / 719-339-2659
3. Sign up for our upcoming webinar – The 3 Things You Must Know & Do Before You Write Your Own Resume here: https://www.karavarner.com/3ThingsWebinar
RSS Feed
