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Subject:Re: Interview Etiquette From:"Eric L. Dunn" <edunn -at- TRANSPORT -dot- BOMBARDIER -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 1 Jun 1999 12:06:29 -0400
As far as mailing a thank you note I would find this an odd practice. I
thank the interviewer at the end of the interview for their time and they
thank me for coming in. Neither sends a thank you note. However the
interviewer should give the interviewee a response either positive or
negative and should definitely acknowledge/answer follow up calls or
correspondence. The case described at the beginning of this thread I found
disgusting. The interviewer was just plain rude (or cowardly). If a
candidate calls back to follow up, it would only take five minutes to tell
them the reasoning for the decision or lack of decision.
My worst case was going to three interviews, one with H.R., one with the
section head, one with the section and department head, and then never
hearing back from them. The HR reps thought that this was perfectly
acceptable. I understand the rational behind not hearing from HR as they
interview everyone for general information and there may be dozens of
candidates for dozens of positions. But by the third interview it's
disgusting that the manager didn't even send a TNT. The same company then
calls me back to set up an "urgent" interview, only to get back to me 2
weeks later to say the position had been filled internally.
While Andrew may have a point about cover letters et al. I'd have to say
that personally, depending on circumstances, cover letters are a big waste
of time. Even the layout of your resume often doesn't matter one iota. If
you are applying through an HR department, I've found the cover letter is
discarded and your well designed resume is retyped by some secretary into
an ASCII database of candidates. For this reason I find it better to always
have copies with you at the interview. The interviewer may never have seen
anything that you sent.
