Following up with people is a lost art, and we need to do more of it. I have been on the job hunt for the past five months, luckily, my freelance writing gigs have kept me earning monthly income while I look for a day job. I have found that when you follow up with hiring managers, they respond favorably to you. Here are some examples of ways to follow up with people in your personal and professional career.
- Send an email to a hiring manager before the interview to thank them for the opportunity to meet with them.
- Send a written letter to a hiring manager after the interview thanking them for their consideration of you for the open position. Hand-written letters are powerful, because no one sends them anymore. When is the last time you’ve received a handwritten letter from someone you know? If your handwriting is horrible like mine, then ask someone else to write it for you. Unless you turned in something to them in your own writing, they’ll never know it’s not your handwriting until AFTER you’ve been hired.
- Always send thank you notes to friends and family for gifts you received. Times are tough and when people think of sending you a gift in the mail in your adulthood, it deserves a note of thanks.
- Thank friends when you stay in their home overnight. It’s a nice gesture to send a thank you note to a friend when they put you up for the night, especially if it’s a new friendship. You don’t need to thank your best friend of 20 years for staying at their place, but definitely if it’s a co-worker that became a friend recently.
It’s powerful, and it works. Don’t manipulate it’s power either. People will sniff out your insincerity. If you’re going to follow up with someone, do it because you truly are grateful for what they did for you. In an economic climate where 600,000 people are filing for unemployment every week, you better damn well thank an employer when they grant you an interview.
