Wooden letter tiles spelling 'thank you' on a grid background, perfect for gratitude themes.

Don’t write a thank-you note

ByDaava Mills

You shouldn’t write a thank you note…

The typical thank-you note is boring, and a waste of words. This should be a place to sell your skills and help close the deal.
Your traditional “thank you” note goes like this.

Dear Ms. Applebee,

Thank you for taking the time to meet with me today. I liked learning about your team. I am confident I can make an impact within your company.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Jake Barnum

That is wasted real-estate, wasted time, and wasted money if you snail-mailed it.

Here is a list of what you should do:

  1. Email the note within 24 hours, or not at all.

  2. Don’t thank them for their time, they are doing a job, and that is hiring someone. However, you should thank them if you were doing an informational interview.

  3. Be specific about what you can bring to the table, and how it can alleviate their pain points.

  4. Tell them what your references will verify.

  5. Let them know you are available for follow-up questions.

This is what it should look like.

Dear Ms. Applebee,

I enjoyed meeting with you and your team today. Listening to you describe the challenges in your department reminded me of my experience at ABC Corp. I helped to spearhead a new way of dealing with BOLs that helped catch up the department on 6 months of backlogged work in 15 days. I loved taking the bull by the horns and would jump at the chance to do it again.

Since you are shopping for systems right now, be sure to ask my references about my system implementation experience. I was the lead when we implemented ZactTrack, an Oracle-based system. They will verify that we made all our deadlines for implementation.

If you need to get a hold of me, I am available on my cell phone at 503-555-5555. Please do not hesitate to reach out should you need more clarification or if another question has come up.

Sincerely,

Jake Barnum

And that is how you use your written real estate wisely.

This blog is something I wrote a while back, and still refer people to this day. If you want to know more about job seeking, please join me at my Job Seeker webinar on March 13th, at 11:30 PST.

If you are a company looking to connect with me, please do so at my Contact Page.

Daava Mills (that’s me!) has been in the trenches of Recruiting and Retention for over 25 years. I love to help companies explore what works for them, not what other companies are doing.

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