You just left the interview. You
think it went great. Now what?
Now is not the time to let up.
Everything that you’ve done up to this point is moving you forward in your job
search. Keep the momentum going.
First, Send a Thank You
You can send a thank you via
email (quick, but not as personal as a handwritten card). You can mail it
(takes a few days, so it doesn’t have the immediacy of an email, but has a
bigger impact due to the perceived time and care it took to handwrite a note).
Or, you can drop off a handwritten note the next day (a good strategy for big
companies when you can hand the envelope to the receptionist).
What should you say in the thank
you note? Thank the interviewer for the opportunity to talk with him or her
about the job. (If you interviewed with multiple people, you should send a
personalized thank you note to each person.) Reiterate your interest in the
position. Mention something specific from the interview, or take this opportunity
to share information that you may have forgotten to note in the interview.
Promise a follow-up at a specific date.
For example:
Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today about the
Marketing Coordinator role. I am very interested in this position, and would
love to be a part of the Acme Company team. I also really enjoyed meeting Amy,
Pete, and Bob.
As we talked about, my experience in planning and executing large-scale
events would be most relevant to this role. As I mentioned, I’ve planned events
from as small as an employee recognition luncheon for 15 people to a 500-person
conference that had a budget of $475,000. I am confident this experience will
be well utilized in this job.
If you would like me to prepare an event planning timeline for a
hypothetical event in advance of the second round of interviews, I would be
happy to do that. Just let me know!
I will call you next Monday to follow up. If you need anything in the
meantime, you can reach me at 555-555-0000 or email Jane.Jobseeker@gmail.com.
Sincerely,
Jane Jobseeker
At the end of the job interview,
one question you should have asked is, “What is the next step, and when do you
expect to make a decision?” If you got a specific timeframe for an answer, that
will guide your follow-up. Perhaps the interviewer outlined the next step in
the process (for example, a second interview, or a reference check). But if
not, there are usually things that take some time before the interview process
can continue, or a job offer is extended. Patience — and persistence — are key.
What Else You Should Be Doing
Keep applying for other
positions, even while you wait to hear back on this one. Don’t put all your
eggs in one basket. For one thing, it will give you more leverage in
negotiating a job offer if you have more than one position being offered to
you. And some jobs never get filled.
For example, the budget for the
new position might not be approved. Or the responsibilities of the job opening
may be distributed to one or more existing employees. Or an internal candidate
may have suddenly become available, and the position is offered to him or her.
There are many reasons why the position may never be filled at all. But that’s
not comforting if you were the leading candidate for the job.
Sometimes you were the best
candidate that they had interviewed so far, but then someone whose skills and
experience were an even better fit came through the door. Even though the job
interview went well, you might not be offered the job. That’s why it’s important
to keep applying for other jobs. If you put your job search on hold while you
wait to hear back on a specific offer, you will lose valuable time if that
offer doesn’t come through – or if the salary they offer is too low, and even
negotiating it won’t bring it into the range of something you’d accept.
Speaking of salary, there are
also some other things to work on while you wait to hear back about a decision.
Salary is one of those things. If pay and benefits weren’t discussed in the job
interview, start researching that subject. You can look on a site like
Glassdoor.com for information specific to
that company, or sites like
http://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm
(Bureau of Labor wage and statistic data) or
http://salary.com/ (Salary.com) for data
on salaries for similar job titles in your geographic area.
Another thing to work on is
developing any specific skills that were mentioned in the job interview but
that you’re weak in — for example, specific software platforms. Not only will
this give you something to do while you wait, but it’s also an opportunity for
you to demonstrate your serious interest in the position, because you can
mention what you’re doing to strengthen your skills in your follow up with the
interviewer.
Reach out to your network. If
someone you knew at the company had passed your résumé along to the hiring
manager, be sure to check in with him or her after the interview. Your contact
may be able to provide you with insight about the number of candidates
interviewed, how your candidacy was perceived, and other valuable information
about the hiring process and the company culture.
Also reach out to your references
at this time. Let them know that you’ve interviewed for the position (give them
the job title and company) and that they may be contacted. Make sure they have
an updated copy of your résumé. Ask them to let you know if they hear from the
company.
Finally, if this was a first
interview, start preparing for the second round of interviews! Do more research
about the company. If you anticipate you’ll be asked about a specific project
you worked on, put together a brag book or portfolio to use in the second
interview. Google the company and find out what they working on, and how this
job might impact their future plans.
How and When to Follow-Up
If the interviewer didn’t mention
a timeframe for making a hiring decision — or you didn’t ask — you have a couple
of options. The first is to wait a few days (more than three; usually no more
than seven) and then reach out to inquire.
How should you follow-up? Unless
the interviewer has stated otherwise, a phone call is usually the best method
for follow-up. Try to reach the person directly; only leave a voice mail if you
can’t reach them after a couple of tries.
Before making the call, use some
of the following strategies to make sure you come across as confident, not
desperate. Research shows that in phone conversations, your voice accounts for
84 percent of your effectiveness. Here’s how to warm up for that call:
Stretch. Stand up, with your legs
slightly apart from each other. Reach up towards the sky (or ceiling) with your
palms flat. Breathe out slowly. Repeat 2-3 times.
Smile. When you smile when you’re on the
phone, the listener can “hear” that. If you can, place a mirror where you can
see yourself talking. This will remind you to smile.
Stand up. Stand when you call the
interviewer. When you stand up, it increases your blood flow, which gives you
more energy. That energy comes through in your voice.
If you’re following up directly
with the interviewer, don’t say, “I’m calling to see if you made a hiring
decision.” Instead, remind him or her of who you are (including a five-second
blurb that can act as an audio clue to help the interviewer remember who you
are — “I’m the candidate who helped plan the President’s visit to Acme
Company”), and say, “I just wanted to reach out to you and make sure you had
everything you needed from me in order to consider me for the (job title) job.
Do you need anything else from me at this time?”
That makes it easy for the
interviewer to say, “No, we have everything we need” (which will be the usual
response), but it can lead you into your follow-up questions. These can
include:
• Am I still a
candidate for this job?
• Have you
decided on candidates for the second interview yet?
• Has the
timeframe changed for making a hiring decision?
• Is the next
step still (whatever the interviewer had outlined as the next step in the
process)
• Would it be
okay if I checked back in with you (and be sure to ask when you should do that)
If the interviewer did mention a
time frame — and that time and date has passed — don’t panic. It is extremely
common for the hiring process to take much longer than the interviewer
anticipated. People get busy with other work, get sick, go on vacation, and
have family emergencies. Sometimes the company’s priorities change, and an
urgent hiring situation may become less urgent. All of these can lengthen the
hiring timeframe — and may not necessarily be communicated to you.
Even if you’re waiting to hear
back after a second or third interview, the opportunity may not be lost. The
company may be checking your references, and it’s not uncommon for it to take
several days — or even weeks — to reach references. Or the job may have even
been offered to another candidate, but the job offer was rejected. Second
choice doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve finished last!
This is where persistence comes
into play. Follow up with every job application — and interview — until you are
told the position has been filled. Then you can mark it as “closed” on your job
tracking worksheet or database. But until you hear that it’s been filled, keep
following up.
“But I Don’t Want To Be A Pest!”
During the interview, if you
established permission from the interviewer on how and when to follow up — by
asking if it’s okay to check in (and if he or she would prefer you to do so by
phone or email) — they’ll expect you to follow-up. They may even note it if you
don’t follow-up, since they gave you permission to do so.
In that situation, he or she will
be expecting your call. When you call to check in, you can say, “You said to
call today.”
However, sometimes, the hiring
process will go on longer than the hiring manager or recruiter initially told
you. After calling to follow up two or three times, you may wonder if your
follow-up is being seen as “too much” or “too aggressive.”
The longer the process goes on,
the less frequently you should reach out. In some cases, the hiring process may
take months; in that situation, calling weekly would make you a pest, unless the hiring manager has actually
encouraged you to reach out each week.
The key is asking the interviewer
when he or she would like you to make
contact again. It’s perfectly fine to ask that question — but then make
sure you don’t follow-up more frequently than you were told. Sometimes the
hiring manager will tell you they don’t know a timeframe. In that case, it’s
fine to ask if you can check back at a specific time — for example, in a week.
And remember to ask about how they’d prefer for you to contact them — by phone,
or email? Some hiring managers don’t want phone calls, but will respond to
emails.
If the process is taking a long
time — and you’re not getting any information from the person you interviewed
with — reach out to your network and see if they can help you determine the
reason for the delay. This is when having a contact at the company can be
extremely valuable. If you don’t already have a contact at the time you conduct
the interview, use your existing network of contacts to see if you can identify
a friend-of-a-friend who works there.
LinkedIn can be a good way to
determine this, because it allows you to see these types of second-degree
connections. Search for the company in LinkedIn, and then look who comes up as
employees who you have “Shared Connections” with. Click on the “Shared
Connections” link and it will show you existing LinkedIn contacts you have in
common with those employees.
If you haven’t heard back after
you’ve reached out a few times (left voice mail messages or sent email messages
that weren’t answered), it’s probably time to move on to other opportunities.
You may still hear back from the company, but your time is better spent on
following up on other jobs you’ve been applying for in the meantime.
Remember, even if you aren’t
selected for the position you were interviewing for, many companies do keep
your application and résumé on file, and you might be contacted later about
another opening.
The Process Doesn’t Stop With the Job Offer
Even once you have a job offer in
hand — even a written job offer — things could still change up until when you
actually start the job. So until you start your new job, act like you’re still
between interviews. Keep interviewing, keep following up on your applications,
and keep working on developing your skills.
