Transcript of Video below:
If you had a job interview and it went well, I’m going to teach you how to send a ‘Thank you’ letter to your interviewer, so you can keep your name fresh in their minds and when it comes to the time to decide who gets the job, they’re probably going to think of you.
The whole point of a ‘Thank you’ letter is to remind your interviewer that you’re still interested in the job and to keep an image of you fresh in their minds. That’s it; that’s what it does.
It gives you an opportunity to show them that you are professional. It gives you an opportunity to demonstrate your professional manners and etiquette.
It allows you to highlight your strengths and your skills as they relate to the job. You don’t want to restate all of your skills – just one or two key skills that are relevant to the job.
A ‘Thank you’ letter also gives you the opportunity to mention anything that you forgot or that you left out of the original interview. Let’s say there was a certain skill that you forgot to mention that you had and then the interview is over, so you can say that in a ‘Thank you’ letter and remind them or say, “Hey, I forgot about this. This is something that I can do”.
A ‘Thank you’ letter also gives you an opportunity to fix an interview that maybe you messed up or you botched. You said something you didn’t really mean to say and you didn’t get a chance to correct yourself or maybe you got home and you’re like, “Oh, no. I shouldn’t have said that.
I understand what they meant now”. Now, if you completely bombed your interview, it’s unlikely a ‘Thank you’ letter is going to help you fix that. It’s possible, but it’s unlikely.
But what a ‘Thank you’ letter is going to do for you; it’s going to increase your chances for the job and it does this by reminding your employer that you’re still interested and excited for the job.
Because think about it from an employer standpoint; they interviewed 20 candidates and of all those candidates, not all of them are going to want the job; it’s just not. So, there’s only going to be a small handful of people that really want it. But the employer doesn’t really know which ones those are and that’s why they have these interview processes.
So, if you can help make your prospective employer’s job easier by just raising your hand and saying, “Hey, thank you for the interview. I really liked everything you talked about in the interview. It was great.
This is something that I want to be doing”. You’re showing enthusiasm that you want this job. That’s what an employer wants to hear. That’s what a ‘Thank you’ letter is going to allow you to do.
Now, what I would encourage you to do is to write your letter and I’m going to show you how to write it later in this video. But I would encourage you to write your letter ahead of time.
So, before you even go on the interview, write your letter the way you think you want to write it; at least you’ll have it ready. And then when you get home, you can make a couple of tweaks to it and then you can send it. That way you can get it out right away.
Otherwise, if you just go on into your interview and then you come home and you decide to write the letter, it’s going to take you longer, it’s going to be more awkward. So, write your letter ahead of time. I will show you how to do it in a minute.
And the strategy works great if you’re emailing or if you’re sending a formal letter. For the purpose of this video, I’m going to focus on just sending an email ‘Thank you’ letter because it’s faster, it’s simpler, it’s easier and it’s the most common.
I personally like to use e-mail. Maybe you want to send a formal letter and that’s fine. You basically just take the body of the e-mail letter and stick it in a formal letter and then put all the extra stuff around it that goes in a formal business letter.
So, what actually goes in a ‘Thank you’ letter? The content of your letter should be direct and specific. You want to refer to things that you spoke about in the interview; especially your qualifications and how you will fulfill the needs of the company.
It’s a good idea to reference personal things that came up in the interview; maybe some personal common interests. If you can tie those into your letter, that’s going to make for a stronger connection with your interview. Though you’re bringing up some personal things, your tone, overall, should be professional. This is not a personal letter – professional business letter and you want to show that.
So, it’s good to refer to things that happened in the interview; namely, your skills and how they relate to that position and how you can do this job. This letter should be somewhat of an extension of the interview. That’s how you want to look at it, because it’s a follow up to an interview. You’re not introducing yourself.
You’re just reminding them about you and what you can do for them and the value that they can have when they hire you, if you were to come on board. So, you want to express your excitement.
So, how do you do that? You’re going to have three parts to your letter. You’re going to have the introduction, you’re going to have body of texts and then you’re going to have your close.
So, you’re going to have an opening statement that basically says, “Thank you for interviewing me for ___________ position”. Then you’re going to go into the body of the letter and you’re going to talk about how your specific skills meet their requirements and how excited you are. And then you’re going to close the letter and say, “Thank you very much. It was great meeting you. And I look forward to hearing from you soon” or whatever it is.
So, let’s take a look at a sample letter here and I have it broken up; all the different elements of the letter. And it kind of goes like this;
Thank you for taking time to get to know me in our interview earlier this week. I’m very interested in representing Ageon’s Financial Services in the Cleveland area.
You will recall that I have extensive financial experience as the Director of Finance at Citicorp.
So by saying that, we’re referencing back to a previous position that we have the skills to do this job for them. We’re restating our skills and we’re showing them by example. Then we move on. We say;
Even though my sales experience is not as strong as my financial background, my skill in dealing with various financial institutions all over the world certainly makes up for it.
Perfect introduction. Then we’re going to move into the body of texts.
I have been a member of the executive team that is directly responsible for the long term financial strategy of the company regarding revenue growth, forecasting and financial reporting.
Those were all skills that they talked about in the interview. They talked about forecasting, they talked about growth and they talked about financial reporting. So, we’re restating those in the ‘Thank you’ letter to remind them that, “Hey, these are all areas that we’re really good at doing”.
And then we’re going to move into the third paragraph and we’re going to go for the close.
I have many business relationships with several financial institutions in the Dallas area. I would love to bring my existing client relationships to Ageon to further develop your Financial Services Division for small businesses.
So, what we’re actually doing here, in this case, is we’re saying, “Hey, we have some clients who like us from our last job that are going to follow me over to this job”. So, you’re actually kind of throwing some money on the table for them and in this case you can.
So, in this case, we’re actually throwing some money on the table saying, “Hey, if you hire me, I’m going to raise some clients to you”. That’s a bonus. So, if you can do something similar in your thank you letter that would be great.
And then you wind it up and you say, “Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you soon”.
And that’s really all there is to it. And you can put this in email or you can put this in a formal letter and stick it in the mail.
Let’s look at one more and this is from an engineering standpoint. So, we had a subject line that says, “Thank you. Structural Design Engineer interview”. So, we’re basically saying, “Hey, this is what the interview was about” and putting that in the subject heading. And then we simply say;
Dear Mrs. Radcliffe. Thank you for the interview we had earlier today.
Now, again, this letter is sent right after the interview. So, this person had the interview, went home, typed out a letter and sent it. So, that’s why we’re saying, “The interview that we had earlier today”.
Thank you for the interview we had earlier today about the structural design engineering position. The job appears to be a great match for my skills and recent experience. I’m excited about the prospect of working for Lockheed and adding my expertise to your team.
Beautifully worded; beautiful introduction. Then;
In addition to my engineering skills acquired during my time at Boeing…
Referencing a competitor.
I also bring several years of leadership, direction and customer interface skills to the precision. Engineering was more than just design. It also needs to meet the needs of the client. Leadership is needed within the engineering team to bring together the best designs.
And then we move into the close. So, we say;
I enjoyed our interview and I look forward to speaking with you again about the position.
And that’s all there is to it. There’s no real magic to it a ‘Thank you’ letter. And what goes in one ‘Thank you’ letter might be different than another, because you’re referencing key elements from the job description to tie it all back together, so that they remember you, it refreshes your skills and your experience with them and it demonstrates how enthusiastic you are working there.
Sending a thank you better is undoubtedly going to improve your chances for getting the job. I can’t guarantee you’ll get the job but it’s definitely not going to hurt.
Sending a ‘Thank you’ letter never hurts because you’re reaching out to somebody and you’re telling them that you’ll like them and you’ll like what they’re offering and you want to work there and are excited about it. And your enthusiasm is going to shine through and it’s going to improve your chances guaranteed.
And what I’m going to do is I’m going to put a link to the transcript of this video in the description below, so you can go there and you can get the exact wording that I used in these thank you letters. And I’m also going to give you three ‘Thank you’ letters.
I have a whole book on thank you letters. It’s called Perfect ‘Thank you’ Letters. And this has about a hundred different ‘Thank you’ letters and it from all different professions. I think 20 different professions.
Five different letters for each profession. And it’s over a hundred letters in this book. It goes into a lot more detail into the anatomy of writing one and how to write one and a lot more than I can go to in this video.
But what I’m going to do is I’m going to put a link in the description below where you can download three ‘Thank you’ letters. I’m just going to give them. I’m going to pull them right out of this book and I’m going to stick them in a special document for you. You can just pull that down from my Google Drive. I’ll put the link for this in the description below.
All you have to do is just put your email address in there and tell me where to send it and then I’ll send you a link to where you can download three sample letters from my Google Drive. I’m sure those will help you write your own letter.
And like I said, if you want to get more involved. You want to go deeper into the ‘Thank you’ letter process and the anatomy and you want more samples, three isn’t enough, then I’ve got the Perfect ‘Thank You’ Letters here. And that will help you go a lot farther than I can in this video.
So, after your next interview, make sure you send them a ‘Thank you’ letter. Remind them how much that you like them and you want to be there.
That’s all I have for you today. If you like this video, share it with a friend and subscribe to my channel. Thanks again for watching and I’ll see you next time.
Hey, this is Don. While you’re still here, subscribe to my channel and watch the next video that I have cued up for you.
I put a link to the transcript of this video in the description below. I also put a link to where you can download three sample ‘Thank you’ letters from my Google Drive.
