Interview Tips

Six Follow-Up Tips to Impress Hiring Manager and Land Your Dream Job

You just had an interview – congrats! Now, onto the next steps. How should you follow up? After you get an interview, you are excited, rushing with adrenaline, and should be proud that you have gotten this far. You will most likely be anxious to see what the next steps are, to hear a response back, and to want to know whether you’ve gotten hired or not. Yet, it is still possible to mold your future into what you want after your interview is over. Based on how and when you follow up from your interview, you can make the difference of whether or not you land the job you are applying for. Here are the top six components of following up to your job interview, to set you up for success.

1. Sending a Thank You Note.

After around two days, send a thank you note to the interviewer or interviewers. Only one in 20 candidates will send a thank you note after they are interviewed, so sending one will make you stand out as a good candidate and will remind them that the interview happened. Make sure to include your name in the email, a bit of what you talked about, why you are excited about the opportunity, and feel free to put in an extra tid-bit of information about your qualifications or experience in case you forgot something important. It is vital to be concise with your words and not overly lengthy or sales-y, and to try to stand out a bit as well. Thanking the interviewer for the opportunity within two days is a perfect first step to take after an interview.

2. Make it Easy for Them to Remember You.

Hiring managers more often than not have a lot going on with their lives. Whether or not they are going to hire you is not the only thing that is happening in their minds; they have their own personal workload, other candidates that they are interviewing, and their personal life to deal with. So, you want to increase your chances of getting hired by making it easy to remember you. When you follow up in your email, make it easy for them to recall who you are and what your interview was like, otherwise they may easily completely forget about you amongst everything else that is going on. When they think about who they want to hire, you want to come to their mind instantly. If you can achieve this by standing out, then you have a better chance of being called back and asked for a second interview and eventually being hired. In your email, mention what title you applied for, the date that you interviewed on, your name, and any other specific details that will make it easy for them to remember you. This step is a vital part of selling yourself and setting yourself up for success.

3. Following up a Second Time.

When you follow up a second time, wait at least a week after you first followed up with them. You don’t want to come across as too eager or aggressive, and you definitely don’t want to annoy the hiring manager. In this second follow-up email, keep it very simple and straight to the point. Tell them that you would like to follow up on your previous email about whether or not there are any updates with your candidacy, and that you are still very excited and interested in the role. This will keep you in their minds, remind them again of who you are, and can help you stay in the running for the job you are applying for. Try to avoid sending an email that is not within working hours or at a very late time at night, as this may come across as unprofessional. Keep in mind to put an identifiable piece of information in the subject line in addition to the body of your email, such as your name and/or the position that you are applying for.

4. Do not Pester Them.

As excited as you are to know whether you are a shoe-in or not, do not pester the hiring manager. Do not call or email them multiple times in a row, and do not ever sound demanding or impatient in your emails. No matter how long they take to respond, you must remain professional and polite in your follow-up emails and correspondences. The moment that you are out of line, hiring managers will have no problem throwing out your resume and information and moving onto the next person. Keep your cool and be composed and this will give you an extra edge within the process.

5. Let Them Know if You Move on.

If you are no longer interested in a job, that is fine, but let them know as soon as you do. Just as you expect a job to let you know if you are hired or not, you should be courteous to them and let them know if you have realized that the position is not for you. If this happens to be the case, send them a polite email thanking for their time while telling them that you are no longer interested in the position. This polite gesture is a good practice to keep and will also help you keep organized with what jobs you still want and which ones you are no longer considering.

6. Proofread all of your Correspondence.

No matter what you do, make sure that everything that you send is proof-read and checked for any grammar or spelling mistakes. Once you send an email, you can’t unsend it. Hastily sending out something with a typo or with vital info missing is a tragic but simple mistake within the process that you can easily avoid by making sure to proofread your emails and put it through a spell-checker. Something as simple as a grammar mistake can put you at the bottom of the list of applicants, or can completely take you out of the running for the job. Focusing on not making this one mistake may just put you ahead of the game.

By following these follow-up steps, you will set yourself up for success, stand out, sound professional, and be that much closer to landing the job that you desire. Good luck!