Sending a thank you email after a job interview expresses your continual interest in the position. However, in the competitive job market, it is not enough to send a general thank you email that simply thanks the interviewer for their time and lets them know that you believe you would be a good fit for the role. To stand out from other candidates, you must personalize your message and create a connection. Here are our tips for how to stand out in your interview thank-you email.
Create a Subject Line that Catches their Attention
Composing a subject line that grabs the attention of the hiring manager helps to ensure that your message will get read and creates interest. In an article about writing follow-up emails, the author, Chris Westfall, gives some ideas for creating effective subject lines. He states that subject lines need to show the expertise of applicants and how they can offer solutions to the company. He also gives these creative ideas for subject lines:
New Ideas for Product Launches – from Nathan
Engineering Your Team’s Results – From Jessica Vishnu
Fighting Uncertainty in Product Management – from Keesha
These are certainly more eye-catching subject lines than a simple “Thank You for the Interview”.
Focus Your Message on How You Can Help
In the body of your interview thank-you email, rather than generally talking about how your past experience can benefit the company, focus on the specific ways that you can benefit the business. To help with this, create a list of key items that stood out to you during the interview. Also, it’s important to always ask about the company’s pain points during the interview so that you can refer back to this information in your follow up message and show how you can be the person to solve their problems.
Other ways that you can stand out in your message include attaching samples of previous work that relate to the position and offering ideas for how you would start a project.
You can also include links to your social profiles in your message.
Researching the Company’s Pain Points
In addition to asking about the company’s pain points during the interview, it is also a good idea to do your research on this before you even go to the interview. This way, you can be prepared to have a meaningful conversation about it. In a Business Insider article, Dan Shapero, LinkedIn’s vice president of global sales, recommends connecting with someone at the company. He says: “maybe you send a cold email and ask them what they think the organization’s going through, plus how your skills might be useful.”
At 2Actify, we can help you with your communication and a connection strategy. We teach strategic online networking skills that can be applied on any major social network platform to help you connect, get referrals, and position you in front of hiring managers to land your ideal job.
Take a look at some of our tips below on having conversations with new connections that land job referrals.
