How to follow up after a job interview

As a headhunter I’m always intrigued to learn from my candidates precisely what occurred during their interviews. Sometimes this information is conveyed in the form of an interview follow up email to the hiring manager where I’m Cc’d on the message.

What rarely works is the generic horn blowing, ego-tooting “I BELIEVE I’M THE BEST CANDIDATE FOR THE JOB” note similar to this one:

“Dear Hiring Manager,

I appreciate the time you recently took to discuss with me the position you currently have open at _______________(COMPANY). It was a pleasure speaking with you. I found the conversation about ____________(COMPANY) and the position extremely informative.

Given my experience and skills I believe that I am uniquely qualified and know that I can meet and exceed your expectations.

I look forward to hearing back from you and I’m very excited about the prospect of working together.”

Do you share my frustration here? We might as well be monitoring a spaceship orbiting the dark side of the moon with this type of message.

There’s a better way: Throw out your “I am the greatest” beliefs and stick with the facts.

Just the Facts

Fact-based interview follow up emails have two components: (1.) A follow up written to the individual(s) that you met with and (2.) A proposal for concrete next steps with the prospective evaluation team to follow.

The Email

The email itself documents the candidate’s understanding of the situation: the pain, reasons for the pain, vision of a solution, organizational impact, agreement for continual exploration, and if applicable a proposal, business case or other supporting documentation. Looking beyond problems and dissatisfactions to opportunities and goals is the second basis for a relationship. Please keep in mind however that fear is a much stronger and more intense motivator than the desire for gain. In fact, the intensity of emotion around the fear of loss is twice that over the emotion around opportunity for improvement.

A good fact-based interview follow up email contains the follwing:

Pain

The principal no pain, no change is of extremely high relevance to hiring decisions. It’s important to document and get verification of the real-time critical business issue that the individual(s) that you’re meeting with are facing. Reconfirming your understanding of the pains including real numbers and stated claims made by the individuals that you’ve met with instead of speculation and your wishful thinking helps to establish personal credibility.

Reasons for the Pain

You should have uncovered and fully explored the implications around their pains in the actual meeting. The ability to pose questions that find, create, and grow dissatisfaction until the level of dissatisfaction exceeds the perceived risks/costs involved in bringing you on board is an art form. The difference between the candidates who are able to obtain and emphasize this information vs. those that do not is analogous to playing a game of checkers vs. a game of chess.

Hiring Vision

This is critical to include in your email. It should be clear and powerful and contain the capabilities that you helped the decision maker(s) see that they need (hopefully biased to your candidacy).

Organizational/External Client Impact

This is where you confirm what the decision maker(s) have told you about the impact of the pain throughout the organization and external to the organization. This helps to build your business case as well as their compelling reasons to take action to get you on board.

Agreement to Explore Further

This reminds the decision maker(s) of their agreement to take the next step and further explore your candidacy, or, if far enough along, make a firm decision. It’s important to remind them of this in the email because it’s more difficult for people to change their minds after things have been committed to and confirmed in writing.

From a quality control perspective these are the five elements that I look for in my candidates’ follow up emails.

If your correspondence doesn’t speak to pain, a forward-looking vision, internal and external impact and most importantly specifics about next steps you’re most likely just going through the motions.

Published in collaboration with LinkedIn

Author: Alan Geller is the Managing Director of AG Barrington, a recruitment and placement firm.

Image: A job interview. REUTERS.