interested in hiring me?” This question is invoked only if they replied “No,” to your first question, above.)
Jot down any answers they give you to the questions above, then stand up, thank them sincerely for their time, give a firm handshake, and leave.
In the following days, rigorously keep to all that you said, and don’t contact them except with that mandatory thank-you note, until after the latest deadline you two agreed upon, in answer to question #4, above. If you do have to contact them after that date, and if they tell you things are still up in the air, you should gently ask questions #2, #3, and #4, all over again.
Incidentally, it is entirely appropriate for you to insert a thank-you note into the running stream, after each interview or telephone contact. Just keep it brief. Very brief.
Every expert on interviewing will tell you two things:
(1) Thank-you notes must be sent after every interview, by every job-hunter; and (2) most job-hunters ignore this advice.
Indeed, it is safe to say that it is the most overlooked step in the entire job-hunting process.
If you want to stand out from the others applying for the same job, send thank-you notes—to everyone you met there, that day. Ask if they have a business card, and if not, ask them to write out their name and address. Do this with secretaries (who often hold the keys to the kingdom) as well as with your interviewer.
If you need any additional encouragement to send thank-you letters (besides the fact that it may get you the job), here are six more reasons for sending a thank-you note, especially to the one who interviewed you:
First, you were presenting yourself as one who has good skills with people. Your actions with respect to the job-interview must back this claim up. Sending a thank-you note does that. The employer can see you are good with people; you remembered to thank them.
Second, it helps the employer recall who you are. Very helpful if they’ve seen a dozen people that day.
Third, if a committee is involved in the hiring process, the man or woman who first interviewed you has something to show the others on the committee.
Fourth, if the interview went rather well, and the employer seemed to show an interest in further talks, the thank-you letter can reiterate your interest in further talks.
Fifth, the thank-you note gives you an opportunity to correct any wrong impression you left behind. You can add anything you forgot to tell them, that you want them to know. And from among all the things you two discussed, you can underline the two or three points that you most want to stand out in their minds.
Lastly, if the interview did not go well, or you lost all interest in working there, and this thank-you note is sort of “goodbye, and thanks,” keep in mind that they may hear of openings, elsewhere, that would be of interest to you. In the thank-you note, you can mention this, and ask them to please let you know if they hear of anything anywhere. If this was a kind man or woman who interviewed you, you may hear of additional leads.
Remember, despite all your careful preparation, and all your thoughtful questions, you may not be offered the job. I remind you of what I said at the beginning of this chapter: the hiring process is more like choosing a mate, than it is like deciding whether or not to buy a new car. “Choosing a mate” here is a metaphor. To elaborate upon the metaphor just a bit, it means that the mechanisms by which human nature decides to hire someone, are similar to the mechanisms by which human nature decides whether or not to marry someone. Those mechanisms, of course, are often impulsive, intuitional, nonrational, unfathomable, and made on the spur of the moment.
There is no magic in job-hunting. No techniques work all the time. I hear regularly from job-hunters who report that they paid attention to all the tips I have mentioned in this chapter and book, and are quite successful at securing interviews—but they never get hired. And they want to know what they’re doing wrong.
Well, unfortunately, the answer sometimes is: “Maybe you’re doing nothing wrong.” I don’t know how often this happens, but I know it does happen: namely, some employers play despicable tricks on job-hunters, whereby they invite you in for an interview despite the fact that they have already hired someone for the position in question, and they know from the beginning that they have absolutely no intention of hiring you —not in a million years!
You are cheered, of course, by the ease with which you get these interviews. But unbeknownst to you, the manager who is interviewing you (we’ll say it’s a he) has a personal friend he already agreed to give the job to. Only one small problem remains: the state or the federal government gives funds to this organization, and has mandated that this position be opened to all. So this manager must pretend to interview ten candidates, including his favorite, as though the job opening were still available. But, he intended, from the beginning, to reject the other nine and give the job to his favorite. You were selected for the honor of being among those nine rejectees.
You will, of course, be baffled as to why you got turned down. Trouble is, they will never confess it to you.
On the other hand, there is always the chance that no games are being played. You are getting rejected, at place after place, because there is something really wrong with the way you are coming across, during these hiring-interviews.
Employers will rarely ever tell you this. You will never hear them say something like, “You came across as just too cocky and arrogant during the interview.” You will almost always be left in the dark as to what it is you’re doing wrong.
If you’ve been interviewed by a whole bunch of employers, one way around this deadly silence, is to ask for generalized feedback from whoever was the friendliest employer that you saw. You can always try phoning, reminding them of who you are, and then asking the following question—deliberately kept generalized, vague, unrelated to just that place, and above all, future- directed. Something like: “You know, I’ve been on several interviews at several different places now, where I’ve gotten turned down. From what you’ve seen, is there something about me in an interview, that you think might be causing me not to get hired at those places? If so, I’d really appreciate your giving me some pointers so I can do better in my future hiring-interviews.”
Most of the time they’ll still duck saying anything hurtful or helpful. Their legal advisor, if they have one, will certainly advise against it. First of all, they’re afraid of lawsuits. Second, they don’t know how you will use what they might have to say. (Said an old military veteran to me one day, “I used to think it was my duty to tell everyone the truth. Now I only give it to those who can use it.”)
But occasionally you will run into an employer who is willing to risk giving you the truth, because they think you will know how to use it wisely. If so, thank them from the bottom of your heart, no matter how painful their feedback is. Such advice, seriously heeded, can bring about just the changes in your interviewing strategy that you most need, in order to win the interview.
In the absence of any such help from employers who interviewed you, you might want to get a good business friend of yours to role-play a mock hiring-interview with you, in case they immediately see something
