You had an interview on Friday of last week and the employer said he would make a decision by mid-week. It is now Wednesday and you haven’t heard anything. Its Wednesday...isn’t Wednesday “mid-week”? Now what? Do you call the employer? Do you wait for them to call you? What’s the protocol?
Customarily, post-interview etiquette dictates that job seekers wait at least one full week after the interview to make contact with the employer. While that may seem like an eternity, failure to maintain this composed wait can be cataclysmic even if, at some point, you may have been a front runner for the position. To employers there is a very fragile, thin line between following up an interview and becoming an annoyance...
Yet, there are still a few ways a job seeker can put themselves in the forefront after the interview process. Here are some tips:
Immediately after the interview send a short thank you note to the interviewer thanking them for the interview opportunity. One novel way to say thank you is to create personal professional postcards for this purpose. Your personal contact information and your specialization, if any, can be printed on the card and then you can add a personal note to the employer. Even in the midst of the social media-zation of the business world, some old rules still apply. It’s requisite to commit to your memory not to email or text an employer to thank them for the interview. A hand written thank-you note is extremely important, as well as being very classy...and class never goes out of style!
Also, don’t let your world stop turning while you are hoping for the phone to ring. Even though an interview seemingly went well, a job seeker should continue to actively pursue opportunities and not place all of their hopes on just one employer. The interview is an integral step in the employment process as a whole and, like any other undertaking - it improves with, and is worth, the recurrence.
copyright: Vet2Work/Naturallysilver 2010-2011.
