A Sample Interview Thank You Letter
As a paralegal, I am in pursuit of job prospects. The opportunity to interview with your firm has been an enriching experience, and I wanted to thank you for your time on the phone.
Whilst our conversation centred largely on my skills and expertise, it was also a good chance for me to confirm that this particular opportunity is aligned with what I am looking for. Your mission statement -
"to provide excellent legal services in a timely manner at reasonable prices" - is something which resonates deeply with me. When I first starting looking, I was looking for a firm which offered a model that valued the reputation, creativity and skills of its staff and so I am very happy to have had the opportunity to confirm that there is much more to you than the business card claims.
I hope that, in turn, this interview played an important role in your decision-making process - based on your genuine interest, it has allowed you to flesh out a potential candidate. And given my ability to understand your position, I believe this is likely also an opportunity for you as well.
Thank you once again for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
John Smith
Sample Interview Thank You Letter 2- Your Skills Were the Real Prize: [ARTICLE START] This is where a thank you letter for an interview becomes more about what you would bring to a role rather than how you impressed an interviewer with your personality or experience. There is still a place for thanking for the opportunity in this instance, but it will be as part of a much larger paragraph which addresses the role and how much you would enjoy bringing your skills to bear on it. The tone of this type of letter is still polite and professional, but it has a different emphasis.
If you received an interview that was largely based upon an assessment of your skills and experience, then this thank you letter will play up how much you would enjoy bringing these to bear on a role. It's still important to write a thank you letter for this type of interview, but the content is different - rather than talking about yourself as a person, you're emphasising why your skills would make the role beneficial both to the company and to yourself.
Sample Thank You Letter for Interview 3- A Second Chance: If you weren't successful on the first interview and would like another one, then there is a very real opportunity to stand out from the other candidates. I remember getting turned down for a job I really wanted when I graduated and being annoyed - but it was one of the most valuable things that has ever happened to me because it taught me how to approach an interview in a different way.
You have to be polite and professional but you also have to show that you have a different skill set or experience than the other candidates. You can do this in a very small way - perhaps by comparing the role in question to something else that you've done - but it still has to be done.
This thank you letter isn't about thanking for the interview. It's about emphasising why you would be a better fit for the job, and why you don't think your skills are as important as most other candidates at the firm. You're not doing anything memorable here - writing nicely is a small cost that will pay large dividends over time if these thank you letters start getting read and remembered when people are making hiring decisions.
Sample Thank You Letter 4- A Thank You for Giving Your Time: I've written about this a few times before and it's not something you can be complacent about. You should always write thank you letters for the interviews that you've taken - and, if you're lucky, get another interview or two out of one of these letters.
But what should you do when you haven't been successful on your first attempt? This is where the concept of a thank you letter being more than just something that plays up your personality starts to come into its own. Writing to say thanks for the opportunity isn't enough here - you need to be thanking them for giving up their time to meet you.
If they have interviewed you, they did so because they wanted someone to fill a role - if the interview didn't work out, then a polite thank you letter is still mandatory but it's no longer enough.
Thanking them for giving up their time shows that you understand how much this process costs not just in terms of money but in terms of productivity as well. It also shows that you understand the type of professional that your interviewer is - and that can be invaluable when trying to impress them down the road.
Different Types of Interview Thank You Letter:
It's important to remember that a thank you letter for an interview is not just a template. It's an opportunity to do something different and memorable, and the better you are at doing so the more likely it is that your interviewer will remember you. It might be because they like what you said, or it might be because they thought it was too weird to forget about. Either way, writing something memorable goes a long way toward helping your future career prospects.
Sample Thank You Letter for Interview A - Vanilla: Some people love being interviewed. Others, not so much. And this thank you letter isn't for them - it's for the candidates who did as well as they could, got an interview and nailed it.
The vanilla thank you letter serves an important purpose by saying thanks and showing that you're a good fit for the job, but it has to be done effectively if it is going to be all that you want out of the process.
A lot of people make the mistake of assuming that a thank you letter is the same thing as a cover letter - although they share some similarities in terms of purpose, they are fundamentally different things with different objectives.
Sample Interview Thank You Letter A - No Personality: Even though this thank you letter doesn't show personality, it does still provide proof that you can write a good professional-sounding thank you letter and provide additional information about the role and the organisation.
It's important not to complicate things here by doing something different - although I would certainly be happy if this type of thank you letter became more common, it won't be because someone decided their boring old Vanilla Thank You Letter was too vanilla anymore. It's also worth noting that this writer is being short and simple here as an effort to write an effective thank you letter.
Conclusion: The Interview Thank You Letter
When was the last time you thanked someone for an interview? Did you do it in a thank you letter or did you just thank them in person? Have you ever gotten a job because of a thank you letter that was sent to the organisation once they had already interviewed or employed someone else? How has the process of writing these changed over the years? And, perhaps most importantly, when are they going to start including pictures and maybe even some colour with these again?
Please share your thoughts on this topic by adding a comment below - all opinions are welcome.
Most People Don't Know These 9 Simple Rules of Email Etiquette: If you liked this post then please consider subscribing to my full email newsletter.