One of the most common follow up emails is for the acknowledgment after a job interview. Here we will focus on the scenario where a person (interview subject) is meeting another person (usually a recruiter, offering a job/position) in real life and a business card is exchanged. The expected social contract is for the person seeking the job to follow up, thanking for their time and attention. Recruiting events such as job fairs and college placement days are also common scenarios.
Some jobs have many candidates with many interviews as part of a multi-month process. Human resources departments have rigid workflows in place to ensure the optimal candidates are vetted and progress towards employment offer.
Therefore it is imperative to stay top of mind and impress where possible without looking too ‘needy’ and especially without spamming the interviewer, decision-maker. One such path to impressing is to follow up, with an email, from the interviewee to the interviewer immediately after the real-life encounter has wrapped up.
Why Instant follow up emails are ideal:
There are several reasons to follow up after an interview instantly:
- Impress not just in person, but with your digital response. Obviously, your CV / Resume / Linkedin Profile / Portfolio have had several iterations and much thought and editing have been applied. An immediate email, on the other hand, shows preparedness and responsiveness that can catch an interviewer by surprise and leave a lasting impression.
- A contextual and personalized notation of the topics covered serves both parties as a summary of the meeting.
- The interviewer likely has to provide internal, written feedback to the members of the recruiting process. An instant follow-up email is your chance to impress them at that moment, and also steer the content of the meeting to the topics you summarized for them in the email.
- It’s your chance to gain another brownie point to the feedback showing speed and seriousness as well as professionalism.
- It’s your chance to teach them a new trick. Namely, the instant follow-up.
- The post-interview email follow-up can also serve as a new email thread upon which you can reply to with in-depth research you may have promised to deliver after the interview.
- The benefit of initiating the new thread is that every time the thread is accessed the instant follow up is recalled by the interviewer via the subject line.
How to email follow up after an interview.
It is important to note that a follow up email after an interview should adhere to the following rules of thumb:
- Stay short and thankful.
- Be contextual and personal.
- Recall the positive, emphasis your strengths.
- Diminish the negative (by omitting where possible).
- Address the negative if it was a major topic.
- Provide a call to action – for you or for the interviewer (the next steps).
- Provide easy to use files/links to your CV / Resume / Social Profiles / Portfolio / Recommendation Contact Details.
Job Interview Follow Up Email Example:
Everyone should use the follow up as an opportunity to express themselves once again. This is your first digital reactionary impression, so do not give off a tone that leaves a taste of dissonance with the recruiter.
The following are a set of several email templates you can use for interview follow up emails using Folocard. You will be able to execute the draft in seconds leaving you a few more minutes to further edit and add specific context to avoid sending a generic thank you email. While that may impress, and be appropriate you will be missing your chance to provide more insight into your professional persona they
Job Follow Up Email Subject Lines:
Thank you, [interviewers first name]!
I enjoyed learning more about [company name]. Thanks!
Thank you for your time discussing [role name]!
Thank you for the opportunity!
Appreciate your advice today.
Follow Up Interview Body:
Hi [first name,]
My name is [your full name], I am [details about yourself or your current position], and we met today at the recruiting event. Thank you again for sharing your experience at [Company Name] with me and for providing me with information about the [role name] position.
Hearing about your success with [market success story] and learning more about the culture excited me to further explore opportunities at [Company Name].
My resume is attached for reference, and a few of the projects that I mentioned as well. Please let me know if there’s anything else you need on my end. I look forward to speaking again soon!
Best,
[Signature]
Please check our blog post on how to add a mobile email signature.
Note: when you get your draft in your email app, you should add another sentence with specific keywords that relate to the topics covered in the verbal exchange. A perfect place for this is between the 2nd and 3rd paragraph and it would be a good idea to bold / highlight the main keywords.
Awesome article.