Ask HN: Interview Thank You Emails. Necessary?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1714618

by fr22 • 16 years ago

17 33 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I have been told by an older business man that it is 100% necessary to send an email to anybody you interview with thanking them for their time and to point out one or two things they said that you were really interested in.

To me personally, this feels like it comes across as annoying and is actually a detriment. I am under the impression that the computer science world cares much less about corporate bs and can actually harm you.

I do not know anybody who hires computer scientists, so I wanted your opinions on the importance of these follow up thank you emails.

PS: I am about to graduate from college.

CyberFonic2• 16 years ago

Courtesy is appreciated by most people who don't have Aspergers! I assume that you are asking from the perspective of the interviewee. You don't have to send e-mails if you don't want to. But don't kvetch if you are not getting jobs and not getting any feedback after being interviewed. The interviewers might think that you are arrogant and no matter how brilliant you might be, that cold be a strike against you.

carbocation2• 16 years ago

Why taint good advice with a slur?

CyberFonic2• 16 years ago

Aspergers is a symptom, I did not mean it to be taken as a slur. In fact, one difficulty with it is that people who have it are often only marginally aware of having it. That is why they find it difficult to even seek help with the finer nuances of social interactions.

larsberg• 16 years ago

Certainly not necessary. I did several hundred in-person interviews of college candidates during my time at MSFT, with at least a hundred of them while I was the hiring manager, and I can remember only three thank-you notes (two via e-mail, one via snail mail).

That said, I remember all three.

awa• 16 years ago

Very few recruiters pass on the email id of the hiring manger to candidates. Also, many candidates write an email to the recruiter thanking him/her and the interviewers which usually never gets to the interviewers.

floodfx• 16 years ago

always ask for a business card...

edw519• 16 years ago

...it is 100% necessary to send an email...

I take it a step further. I always send a hand written Thank You Note by snail mail. Always. I have never failed to do this.

Why? Because if someone has spent an hour of their time (I don't care if it's on company time) to potentially change my life, the least I could do is take 5 minutes to share a sincere Thank You. I always take the time to hand write it, I always make it personal, and I am always sincere. (If you're going to be even 1% phony, don't bother, people will see right through it).

There are some nice byproducts. It demonstrates professional courtesy. It demonstrates good communication skills. It demonstrates good customer service. It gets you remembered. Every time.

But I don't do it for these reasons. I do it because it's the right thing to do. It is never "annoying" or a "detriment". Almost everyone I have ever sent a hand written note has told me that they really appreciated opening it and reading it.

Sometimes I even take it a step further. Several times, I have asked public speakers what their favorite restaurant is, and then sent a gift card in the Thank You note. I really want them to understand what a difference their contribution has made in at least one attendee's life. The gift card is a nice idea because I know they will use it and enjoy it, and maybe even think of me that night. I would never send a gift to an interviewer - that's not the same thing.

carbocation2• 16 years ago

This is extremely classy and I endorse this. In the end, I gave up writing snail mail because it just took me too long to get around to it. I'm much better at writing email. But at any rate, a brief, courteous 'Thank-You' can virtually never hurt. Even if it can't help, either, it's not a bad way to force yourself to ruminate a bit on the interview.

baddox2• 16 years ago

I don't quite get your reasoning here:

> if someone has spent an hour of their time (I don't care if it's on company time) to potentially change my life, the least I could do is take 5 minutes to share a sincere Thank You.

That implies that choosing a slower method of communicating somehow shows greater thanks than would, say, an email or phone call. I suppose to some people (certainly not me), a snail mail letter may seem more personal or professional than an email, but I don't think the mere fact that your message arrives via snail mail vs. email would reliably earn you points with those in charge of hiring.

slammdunc23• 16 years ago

I always used to send hand-written thank-you notes, but when I started doing on-campus recruiting I realized that sometimes snail mail isn't feasible. The places I was interviewing were handing out second-round interviews the night of the interview or the next day, so if I wanted my message to reach my interviewer before s/he made a decision, I had to turn to email. Also, this is anecdotal, of course, but the only place I interviewed where I did not get an offer was the one I forgot to send thank-you emails to (I was traveling the whole day and then remembered too late...). Take that as you will! I personally think thank-you notes can only help you if they're well written and sincere.

rick_20472• 16 years ago

The main reason to chose snail mail is not that it is slow, but that it shows some amount courtesy and appreciation.The cost (in terms of time) of writing an email v/s letter should not be measured in terms of the number of minutes. I think of it this way, somebody who had take the time to get some postal envelops, stamps, sat down and wrote the letter leaving his work in some way and then dropping it off to a post box is much more classy than someone who composed an email in his/her already open client and wrote a bare bone email with a template in their drafts folder.

powatom• 16 years ago

If somebody did this for me, I'd immediately think of it as slimy and basically 'suck-up' behaviour. I would value people honoring their subordinates or customers. So long as they're not assholes to their superiors, I don't care about brown-nosing or any of that nonsense.

brosephius2• 16 years ago

I appreciate that your intentions are good, but I think going that far is risky (except maybe in some specific cases/industries)...if you're going that far out of your way (and yes, in this day and age a written letter is going out of your way), it could very well strike someone as brown-nosing. not to mention it can be hard to convey 100% sincerity in written form. maybe I'm just a cynic...

sgk284• 16 years ago

Courtesy is courtesy no matter what field you're in. I've always sent a thank you note no matter what. They took time out of their schedule for me, it's the least I could do.

Here's two tips to help you:

    1) You can never be too courteous.

    2) There is nothing wrong with being the best dressed in the room.

(Note: I've never worn a suit to an interview, but still always try to dress nicely even if I know the company is a shorts/sandals/t-shirt kind of place. In those instances a nice pair of jeans and an ironed shirt usually work.)

edge172• 16 years ago

yea, same here. Though I don't disagree, I like to dress [well] in a way that suits my personality as well. Showing up in a suit to a startup does say something about you (not that that's bad, but it says something)

cliffchang• 16 years ago

The rule of thumb to use in most interviewing situations, not just Software Engineering, is to dress one "degree" up from your interviewers. If you're being interviewed by jeans and a T-shirt, wear a dress shirt and slacks. If you're being interviewed by a dress shirt and slacks, you can't go wrong with a casual suit.

If you're being interviewed by a formal suit, though, don't go busting out the tux :-p. That's the top level.

thisduck2• 16 years ago

The problem I have with thank you notes - both as an interviewer and an interviewee - is that not only are they mechanical in nature but also manipulative. The interviewee has something to gain by sending a thank you note.

When all the people you have interviewed send you a thank you note because it's "the thing to do," then it is hard to gauge the level of sincerity.

For me, the enthusiasm and energy demonstrated at the actual interview is far more indicative of whether either party really actually appreciated spending time together.

jat850• 16 years ago

You don't send the note because you have something to gain (in my opinion). You send it because you wish to be courteous, and for no other reason, and with no other expectation.

thisduck2• 16 years ago

So is not sending a note a lack of courtesy? And who should send the note? The interviewer? The interviewee? Both?

nhashem• 16 years ago

I honestly think it doesn't matter. I have about 10 years of professional experience, and while I used to write thank-you e-mails and even snail mail letters on every job interview I went on when I was younger, I stopped doing it a long time ago. Here's why:

a) A startup or a mid-sized company will usually act pretty fast in making an offer or informing the candidate they're declined. The bureaucracy at bigger companies may mean it could be awhile before you hear back from them even if they liked you, but for the most part I felt silly sending thank-you letters after my employment at the company was already determined.

b) It's common to go on an interview loop and meet 4-8 people. I found myself basically copy-pasting them same letter to everyone I had met and I felt really foolish. The alternative was to think of something unique to everyone, but this felt equally contrived ("I really enjoyed those questions about how Perl handles multiple inheritance!")

c) Business cards are pretty passe now and a lot of engineers don't get them at companies because they don't need them. So I would ask the employees I would interview for their cards, they wouldn't have any, so I had to awkwardly quickly jot down their full name and e-mail address while the next interviewer was already walking into the room. Or sometimes I would forget to ask, and then I'd e-mail the HR contact, and I doubt it ever got to the interviewer.

d) When I got older, I quickly realized I never made any difference to me as a hiring manager. If I liked a candidate, I hired him. If I didn't, I didn't hire him. If I received a thank-you e-mail, it didn't make a lick of a difference. I know it can demonstrate good communication skills, etc, but I already made my judgment on the candidate's communication skills in the 1 hour I spoke to him, not in the 15 seconds I took to read his thank-you e-mail.

e) At a company I interviewed at, I once sent everyone a thank-you e-mail, and then I was hired. Somehow my personal e-mail address was made the default in everyone's Outlook address book for my name, and it was literally weeks until it was fixed. Until then I had to keep checking my personal e-mail as well as my work e-mail. This is obviously more a failure of Outlook or that company's IT department, but that was basically the last time I ever sent thank-you e-mails.

Look, it won't hurt. If you're paranoid and getting a lot of 'old-school' advice, then go ahead and do it. But seriously, at no point does a candidate's offer status hang in the balance on his thank-you note. An interview debrief never ends with, "well, sounds like we could really go either way on this guy... let's see if he's the kind of polite young chap that sends a thank-you e-mail."

So good luck with the interviewing, and if you're concerned about coming off as polite and well-mannered, the best way to to express is it in the interview itself... not a contrived thank-you e-mail that the interviewer probably won't get anyway and won't influence his decision even if it does.

thornkin• 16 years ago

I have to agree. As a hiring manager and a long-time interviewer, I can say that getting a thank-you note doesn't affect things. I have only received a few, but I've never once thought something like "I wasn't going to hire Natasha, but she sent me a nice note so I suppose I will."

It can't hurt (much), but it doesn't help much either. As nhashem says, if you want to make a difference, do it in the interview itself. That's what counts, not the old school advice of a thank you note, an objective statement, or heavyweight paper.

aasarava• 16 years ago

I'll disagree. Here's why you should send a thank-you note: Though it may not matter to some hiring managers, it can make a difference for others. I put myself in that latter category.

Whenever I'm in a hiring position, I take a close look at the candidate's courtesy and interpersonal skills. Candidates who are polite, even to the receptionist, and who follow up with a thank-you email always get a little bump in "points" in my book.

The person who is thoughtful enough to thank me for my time not only understands social protocol, but is more likely to be respectful of others around the office.

It's not enough to get you hired if you don't have the skills for the job. But if there's a tie, the person who sent me a thank-you note will always get the job over the person who didn't.

And ties like this have happened in my experience.

So the moral is that you just never know if it's going to matter or not -- so you might as well do it.

wallflower• 16 years ago

Please read this: (this is why I was able as a very socially awkward college student not stumble through the first job search):

http://www.collegegrad.com/interview/thankyouletterafterinte...

Sending a Thank You email takes almost no effort. Sending a Thank You letter in the mail takes a bit of effort. Consider a job fair where a recruiter gets a hundred resumes. Could sending a sincere Thank You note in the mail possibly make you stand out from the crowd? Most especially in these days of longer hiring cycles where the difference between a minute of effort to send an email and the ten minutes to write, print, sign (with blue ink to contrast from black printer ink), and mail might make a difference.

There is a better site and a book, http://collegegrad.com that really exposed the behind-the-scenes of hiring because it was written by a hiring manager. Pretty much everything I'm saying here has been paraphrased. As the site says, the secret to an effective Thank You letter is to restate your interest in the position after thanking them and most important have a future promise to follow-up: "I will call you next Wednesday at 3pm to discuss this further" Even if you don't get the person on the line, by calling when you said you would - you earn professional credibility.

edge172• 16 years ago

Interviews are a two way process. People seem to think it's about the interviewer showing up and answering a bunch of questions, but the goal is to try to make a connection. Sending a thank you is part of making that connection.

Your 'thank you' can include specifics of the conversation that interested you, or more questions that you have in order to show your interest. It's another opportunity to communicate with someone you may want to work with.

SHOwnsYou• 16 years ago

I've only ever hired one person, so my experience in this is limited.

I was on the fence between the two top people. Both were great, right out of college and seemed eager to learn. One sent a thank you card, the other did not.

I hired the one that didn't send a thank you card because I was more concerned about keeping out a (potential) kiss-ass in the thank you note writer.

Also, I don't think a thank you note is courteous. If I believed that I'd also need to think that not sending a thank you note is a sign of an absence of courtesy.

Making courtesy a function of thank you notes would cause them be thrown out ad nauseum and would lose some meaning.

jwallz• 16 years ago

it really varies from place to place and company/industry. Which probably means its fading out. I recently went through a few rounds of interviews with several people at a large software company and i did not send thank you emails. I was given the job but it was brought up over beers later on with boss and peers how i did not send thank you emails. they mentioned how during their interview process that most people were not doing that and it seemed to them that was becoming outdated.

Now i was briefly a hiring manager before and i hated getting follow up emails from people i interviewed. It is so obvious that people know it's something they have to do and just kicked out these canned scripted thank you messages. Most people's inboxes are already full and they are busy why would they want this?

And my personal opinion is that, honestly they should be thanking you. I mean, they need help. They put out a "Help Wanted". You have skills that can help them. They asked if you wouldn't mind taking 3 hours out of your work day so you could go down to meet several of their team members so they could evaluate you and help them make certain they are hiring the right person. Maybe they should be thanking you?? It's a two-way street.

zackola• 16 years ago

This isn't corporate BS, this is you following up and letting them know you were listening to what they were saying, perhaps continuing a discussion that was had or sharing links to some things you talked about.

If you can't bother or aren't excited enough to email the people you interviewed with, who will potentially be the people you spend 50% of your waking hours with if you get the job, why bother applying in the first place?

Hovertruck• 16 years ago

It makes a big difference.

I interviewed with a Y-Combinator funded startup, and having felt that the interview went really well I awaited the plan for moving forward. Days turned into weeks turned into months and eventually I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to get a call. It was upsetting not only because I really wanted the job but because I spent those weeks hoping just to hear anything at all, whether it was good or bad, so I could move forward or move on.

Interestingly enough, 6 months later the position is still listed as open.

AmberShah• 16 years ago

As a hiring manager, most of the time my mind is made up 30 minutes into the interview (though it's not considered polite to cut it short or notify them at that time). However, in the very rare case of a tie, a follow up email (or handwritten letter) will definitely swing it in your favor.

Actually, despite it being the common advice, they are quite rare to receive. So I tend to take notice and remember that person much later even if they are not selected. I would be likely to give the person another shot if they re-applied for another position, or pass their resume along to another position where I think they'd fit better. I'd never do that for someone who didn't follow up.

_b8r0• 16 years ago

I generally e-mail people I interview afterwards, and call them to let them know the decision. There's a fair few that don't make the cut, particularly when it comes to investigations, but they're always good to keep in touch with.

I'm also with edw519 on the courtesy front, it's just that in this modern day and age I find that people's attention spans when it comes to job worries are more suited to a quick email than a letter a few days later.

brosephius2• 16 years ago

it depends, but it couldn't hurt. I see such emails as fluff, but that's just me. I wouldn't hold it against someone either, because that would be incredibly petty. but, you never know, so why not? as long as it's concise and (at least sounds) sincere, only a total jerkwad would hold it against you.

(funnily enough, the job I have now is the only one I didn't bother sending thank you emails for, since after weeks of interviewing I got tired of the whole ritual. go figure.)

Ask HN: Interview Thank You Emails. Necessary?

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