Importance of the Thank You Letter!

Should you write a thank you letter/email? Yes, of course! What in the world would make anyone think they shouldn't is beyond me?

What should be included in your thank you letter? Why, I thought you'd never ask. Actually I thought you'd never ask because to most, it seems like such an easy task to accomplish. Indeed it is an easy task to complete, but evidently some job seekers miss the entire meaning of a thank you letter. Allow me to help those job seekers navigate through some simple points to keep in mind before typing out those words of thanks.

Before I do so, first let me share some very interesting facts. According to some studies out there, nearly 90% of executives out there agree that sending a thank you letter can help secure a job. Many jobs come down to a few top candidates and simple variables like a thank you letter can separate a candidate from another.

Another study reveals that nearly 50% of job seekers do NOT send out a thank you letter after an interview. Wow! I must admit, I was a bit shocked at that since it again, seems such an easy thing to do.

OK, back to the points you job seekers need to consider when writing a thank you letter.

1. When? Send it within 24 hours after the interview. The sooner the better.
2. Who? If you met with more than one person, you should send a thank you note to all individuals separately. Of course, make sure you have their names spelled correctly. Seems obvious, but as you should well know, peoples names are misspelled often. And it has often led the letter directly on a a one-way course to the trash basket!
3. The obvious - express your appreciation for the interview.
4. Show your interest - express briefly how interested you are in the opportunity with the organization.
5. Restate what you can bring to the organization with your skill-set, your motivation and your enthusiasm for the specific job opportunity.
6. Maybe make a reference to something specific from the actual interview. For example, if the interviewer mentioned a few times that the job would require working within a team structure and sometimes can lead to long hours, you might express your openness and enthusiasm towards this requirement. Chances are if it were brought up a few times, it is is a serious requirement.
7. Keep the entire thank you letter roughly 3 paragraphs and a half page long.
   

As many job seekers realize, especially in today's uncertain times, an "edge" could help get the job. The thing is, there may not be one thing that gives you this "edge". This "edge" could be attained by several things, this being just one of them!

Now wouldn't it be great to know if the individuals received the thank you letter/email? MyJobCast.com, a new application launching soon can help. One of the greatest functions within this application will be the calendar function and communication functions. For example, with an free account, you can schedule an interview in your online calendar. 24 hours before the interview, you can receive an email notification as well as an alert on your cell phone reminding you of the interview. Five hours after the interview schedule time, another email notification can go out as well as an alert on your cell phone reminding you to send a thank you letter.

You can also use the online application to send the thank you email and the system will tell you if the email was actually opened. And... it will email you indicating this and send you another alert to your cell phone.

This new application will serve as a great job seeker's tool. You should strongly consider setting up a free account. In fact you can pre-register today.

Real Interview Feedback is Crucial

Have you ever left an interview feeling like... "wow, that was great!"? Well, you're not alone. Interviewers have an uncanny ability of making you feel like you will be strongly considered for a position following an interview. I mean, hey if you are way out of whack in terms of being a fit for the job, the interviewer may be upfront and provide the typical - "we'll let you know". On the other hand if you were remotely qualified, in many cases, you will be left to believe you will make it to a follow up interview.

The reason for this could be a few-fold. For the sake of this post, I will focus on one. Semantics. Do you think it is easy to tell someone who shows they will do anything to get the job during an interview that there is no way in hell they will get the job? Of course not.

Interview feedback is a funny thing. From an interviewer's standpoint, what should they say, what shouldn't they say. It's just never easy to let someone down. Hence the traditional thank you card you used to receive when a position was given to someone else. Why the card? It's easy. Everyone gets the same answer and there is no human communication where curve ball Q&A could arise.

Today there is good old email. You know... the communication medium we can't seem to live without. We all seem to have more confidence in email. After all there is no back and forth like in a human conversation. We can respond and react with much consideration and thought via email. The trouble is from a candidate's point, what do you ask in an email following an interview? You don't want to appear overzealous, over confident and so on. From a hiring manager's point of view, they are too busy and don't want to commit to anything in writing.

The biggest issue with all of the unemployed, not so much the passive job seekers. Unemployed individuals are burdened with juggling countless resume sends and interviews. There is nothing worse than feeling like you have a great shot at a job, when in reality you may never make it to a second interview. Like many things in life, knowledge is power. This unemployed individual needs feedback to guide his job seeking process. I mean, if you feel like you could be a shoe in for a particular job, you might not pay close attention to newly posted position. You might get complacent. That could be bad. Again, you need feedback!

Is there anything that could help this debacle? Yes.

JTL Services, Inc. a successful executive placement agency for more than 10 years is creating a tool with one of the functions specifically to cater to this void. The tool is http://www.myjobcast.com. The launch is coming soon. You can pre-register for free today in fact. Rather than go into great detail about all of the functionality of this new job tool, I want to focus on the topic. The tool will include an interview feedback system that will cater to hiring managers.

The objective is to get the candidate basic interview feedback in a very timely manner. So rather than ask or expect a hiring manger to write a lengthy response to various interview feedback questions, the tool will ask, on behalf of the applicant, five very simple, multiple choice questions. The answers to these very simple questions, though simple, can actually give a more reliable indicator of the possibility of placement. The objective, again, is to provide enough of an indicator where the applicant can have something rather than nothing (but their own barometer of how well an interview went).

I strongly encourage everyone to go to http://www.myjobcast.com and pre-register as there are many tools that will greatly assist with organizing job seekers and their placement process. The current pre-registration place provides some bullet points as to what this newly launched online job tool will provide all job seekers in the new Jobs 2.0 world we now live in.