Forums

I just got back from an interview and I'm sitting down to write my thank you letters, but I've got a few problems. I can get them out tomorrow since it's after business hours today but I want to make sure to get them off tomorrow. 

First some background: This was a non-traditional interview because they have a very unique culture and they've been having trouble getting people that are a good fit. Because they're so different the traditional interview process doesn't really elicudate if people will fit in. This is an IT job in an agile development shop as sort of a scrum master sort of role. Of course that doesn't completely fit because they're different but that's the general idea. 

The interview process was as follows:

1) Meet with the hiring manager

2) Sit in on a Daily Standup for one of the teams (problem #1) 

3) Interview with the peers (Delivery Manager)  for this position. There were 4. (problem #2)

4) Lunch with a large team. (Problem #3) - More of a get to know you space than a Q&A interview space. 

5) 2 interviews with a couple of other people

6) Recap with manager (Problem #4)

 

Problem #1 - I was just an observer to the standup so I didn't have "conversations" with three of people I only interacted with there. One did something in particular that I think I can talk too. But two of them I couldn't. What do I do for them? Is it enough to say "Thanks for letting me observe" or some such thing? 

Problem #2 - One of the DMs (who were in both the pannel and the lunch) said almost nothing. I made eye contact several times, but he never asked a question or engaged in the general banter at lunch. I maybe could just talk about the general situation that was happening while we were there. 

Problem #3 - There are two people who are on the list for lunch and I don't remember meeting them at all. The one person that I remember and I hadn't met before introduced herself. There were 8 people so it was pretty busy and there wasn't a round of introductions. One I looked up on LinkedIn and I'm pretty sure he wasn't there. The other one isn't on LinkedIn so I have no idea. Do I just skip them? 

Problem #4 - I forgot to close with the hiring manager. Can I do this in the thank you note? 

Thank you much for any assistance you can give. 

Joelle

Doris_O's picture

I've had a number of full day interviews with multiple panels, groups and in some cases public presentations. Any one of these interview sessions I can easily meet with over 35 people. In regards to thank you notes, I now do the following:

1. Send an email thanking the person who organized the interviews and/or the person(s) who escorted me from one meeting to the next.. Usually there is atleast one primary contact and/or decision maker. I email them right away since I've usually spent a good deal of time with them and they will have some say regarding wether or not in my hiring. This may be a senior staff member or it may be someone's administrative assistant. In either case they get a thank you note from me. 

2. Write a handwritten thank you note(s) to the person(s) I emailed.

3. For the sessions with groups, if there is a clear group leader, I handwrite a thank you note to that person and ask them to extend my thanks to the rest of the group. I do this because usually the group is too large for me to have identified and kept track of each person's name and what we discussed. 

4. For groups of key players (ex: a group of VPs) I hand write a thank you note to each one.

 

I am usually given an agenda in advance, so I have two rules of thumb:

1. If their name was listed on the agenda, I send them a thank you note.

2. If they are listed as part of a specific group that I can easily research and find everyone's names and titles, I send them a thank you note. For example if I'm scheduled to meet with the board of trustees, I can find the names of each individual I met with on my own, so I send an email to each of them.

 

 

 

Doris_O's picture

Correction to the above, the last line should read:

"For example if I'm scheduled to meet with the board of trustees, I can find the names of each individual I met with on my own, so I send a hand written thank you note to each of them."