Your job interview is the culmination of a lot of work. You’ve prepared and polished your resume, gone through TAP or ACAP, read your back issues of G.I. Jobs, passed the online screening questions and finished the in-person interview. There’s a natural tendency to feel as if you’ve finished. But you haven’t. And those who realize the importance of the post-interview follow-up are more likely to taste job offer success.
The Purpose
- Summarize the main reasons they should hire you.
- Show that you know general business etiquette.
- Reinforce your desire to work for them.
- Answer any open questions that came out of the interview.
The Format
- Email is the most common format for the post-interview follow-up letter.
- Handwritten notes are rare these days, but since they’re so rare these days, they may set you apart from others vying for the job.
The Next Steps
Hopefully, the interviewer described next steps to you. If a day or two beyond when you expected to hear back has passed, politely call the interviewer, reaffirming your interest in the position and asking when you may expect to hear something. You want to show interest without sounding desperate. It’s a matter of displaying some class. Keep in mind, too, that most companies balance many variables when hiring. So well-intended quick decisions sometimes fail. Now finish the job.
