Ask a Manager

A reader writes: I am a manager, and I’ve heard you speak many times about how the best gift to a manager is a personal note about how the work we’ve done is appreciated by those who report to us. I wanted to share an experience I have recently had that underscores your point. I […]

Post-interview thank-you notes: You should be sending them! Not because you need to thank anyone, really, but because they’re a chance to build on the conversation you had in the interview and solidify the (hopefully positive) impression you made. Too often, though, people treat thank-you notes as a perfunctory duty. They’ve heard they’re supposed to […]

There was a big kerfluffle on Twitter this weekend when the executive managing editor of Business Insider published an article saying that she refused to hire anyone who doesn’t send a thank-you note after their interview. It doesn’t matter if they were otherwise her top candidate — if they don’t send a thank-you, they get rejected. […]

If you’re like most job seekers, you either don’t send thank-you notes after your interviews at all, or you do but you’re confused about the purpose of them, and maybe a little annoyed. It’s a weird convention, after all, since job interviews are business meetings. Why, then, are you supposed to kowtow to your interviewer […]

A reader writes: I have an interview next week for a position at a small company in the middle of relocating. The owner already moved to the area where I’m located and will be the one conducting the interview, and we’re meeting up at a coffee shop as they haven’t picked a location for the […]

A reader writes: Do you have any thoughts on candidates who send handwritten thank-you notes instead of emails? I’m interviewing candidates right now and I always expect to receive a thank-you email within 24 hours. One candidate never sent me one, so I had mentally declined her. (She wasn’t a superstar in person, so that […]

A reader writes: I did a phone interview last Thursday and I wanted to follow up with a brief thank-you note, but I didn’t. All of the communication came from a recruiting coordinator, and I was not provided with any contact information for the two staff members I interviewed with except the date, time, and […]

A reader writes: I recently had a phone interview that left me conflicted. There were aspects of the job that seemed like a great fit, while other things said during the interview raised some questions in my mind about whether it would be a good place for me. I was able to ask some, but […]