interview thank you letters

interview thank you letters
Following through with a thank you letter is a popular way of reminding the interviewer of your enthusiasm, although they may not even acknowledge the gesture.
They just need to express how much you enjoyed the interview, appreciated their time and confirm your continued interest. But, be aware that some people may see it as an unnecessary gesture. Furthermore, the decision whether to employ you, or call you back for another interview, is often made within 24 hours - before your letter could even reach them.

On the positive side, it shows that you are keen and committed and that if offered the position you would be very likely to accept it. You may benefit, for example if their first choice candidate turned them down. If you are seen as a keen candidate who will accept the job, it can only strengthen your position in relation to the other applicants.

Brainstorming and Spider-grams
When faced with a blank sheet of paper, writing a 25 word summary of yourself can be quite a daunting prospect. A brainstorming approach combined with the drawing of a spider-gram can help a lot. The start point for drawing your spider-gram is the four key areas in which a prospective employer is focused, namely:
1. Skills
2. Attitudes
3. Knowledge
4. Experience

The acronym SAKE stands for Skills, Aptitude, Knowledge and Experience. You will need to start with a blank piece of paper and follow these guidelines:
Place your name in a circle in the centre of the page. Now draw four arms emanating from that circle. Now across all four of these areas think about yourself in terms of what you have to offer, what you have achieved and what you can offer to a future employer. The trick when brainstorming is to think freely and not to censor your own ideas, just write it all down. The editing comes later.

The next step is to show your spider-gram to a partner, trusted friend or close work colleague. It is all too easy for you to overlook, or downplay, a powerful characteristic. Now, in light of your current job search, review your diagram and take out all those areas that you don’t want to use. Finally, rank in order of significance, those aspects about yourself that a potential employer would be interested in. This will produce a priority list from which to devise your career statement. Write your career statement, in the first person, and amend it or keep rewriting it until you are happy that it is doing the best possible job for you. Remember, it should be kept to between 20 and 35 words in length.

This is the Personal Statement spider-gram as drawn up by a senior IT specialist, including highlighting of the areas that he identified as being of ‘key’ significance.
This is the sort of career statement this spider-gram may have resulted in:
"I am a highly motivated project manager with an impressive record of successfully delivering major CRM development projects in both the telecommunications and financial sectors." Self-belief is critical to having and communicating the confidence to succeed at interview. When you have a career statement that you are happy with you should adopt it, rehearse it and know it off by heart. Your career statement is you; it is the culmination of a lot of self-analysis and soul searching. Most importantly you should believe in your career statement and use it as the anchor in your forthcoming interview.

Practice Talking About Your Achievements
With your spider-gram and career statement drawn up you will need to ensure that you are familiar with, and confident in, the individual they portray. When it comes to communication skills, research shows that those who are fluent talkers are generally considered:
1. To be more intelligent.
2. To have good interpersonal skills.
3. To make better managers.

The problem is that in our society we are not used to promoting ourselves through discussion and debate. Therefore, you may find it difficult to talk about yourself in a way that you may think is banging your own drum. However, the interview is that rare opportunity where being a self-publicist may be essential to securing the offer.
Therefore, it is important that you are comfortable with talking about your experiences and achievements to date, as you will need to communicate this at interview in a non-bragging style. It can often prove useful to rehearse this out loud, either to a trusted partner or friend; or even on your own. You should be familiar with hearing yourself promoting your skills and abilities, without feeling awkward.