INTERVIEW FOLLOW-UP LETTERS:
The least-used and potentially most effective job-seeking letter is the one you send out following your interviews. Why most job-seekers fail to send a letter following every interview is a mystery. Perhaps the pressures of time are such that job-seekers give it a low priority. When you think about it, however, the interview follow-up letter can do a number of things for you.
- It will help you to be remembered. Chances are you'll be one of the few persons interviewed thoughtful enough to send a follow-up note. Your prospective boss will remember you when others are forgotten.
- It's an opportunity to reiterate that you understand your prospective boss's problems.
- It gives you a second chance to refer your prospective boss to your past contributions that relate to his current problems.
- It gives you an opportunity to show your genuine interest in the job opportunity.
One further point about follow-up letters
Even if you have been able to secure a specific date for an additional interview a week or so after your first, you ought to send one. A simple "thank you" note shows you are a polite candidate, and a businesslike one, as well. Adding a confirming date to your thank you note can be done easily and naturally. Instead of telling your prospective boss that you look forward to meeting him and his associates "in the future," just let him know the day and the time you are looking forward to getting together. Remember, other candidates may meet with your prospective boss between your first and second interviews. A note can keep him thinking of you during this period.
LETTERS TO EXECUTIVE RECRUITER
One of the best is the legitimate, professional recruiter. It would pay almost any job-seeker making fifty thousand dollars or more annually to try and make contact by letter with executive recruiters in his area. To get the most from this important source of assistance, your letter has to help the recruiter determine whether your job objective meshes with any of the searches he is conducting, and to get him interested in you versus the other candidates with similar backgrounds he is considering. In this regard, your letter should:
- Transmit your Resume
No good search firm today can work without a resume. Even if they ask you to fill out their own unique application form, most will still send out your resume to their clients. REVIEW YOUR KEY WORTH POINTS, When a professional recruiting firm introduces you to one of its clients it will need several relevant con attributions that can be used to convince its clients you are a superior candidate. If you list several worth points on page one of your letter to recruiters, they can be seen and used on your behalf. Equally important, your worth points may be what's necessary to get the recruiting firm to promote you instead of the other candidates it has located for the position.
- State your current salary or salary requirement
- State your job objective.
As you read this complete and thorough letter, two anxious thoughts may well cross your mind: "If you give away all the information, will the professional recruiter still want to meet you? And don't you need to sell him in person?"
If your worth points and job objective mesh with the professional recruiter's client's needs, he'll want to meet you in order to recommend you personally. At that time you can talk to him in person about your contributions. It doesn't pay to meet every professional recruiter you write, however. They can't hire you. They can only place you. And they can't do that until they know of a spot for you. Then the recruiter will call you in because you are necessary for him to earn his fee, equal to 30 percent or more of your salary. In a word, he'll be more than anxious to meet you when he can help you, and himself.
RESPONSE TO CLASSIFIED ADS.
About the "classified" ads - those two - and three - lines that include hardly more than a job title and a box number to write to? What then? Should you resort to the typical cover letter that does nothing more than say: "Read my resume. It's attached." You might, but there's another approach that experience has shown works better. And that's to assume the advertiser's needs based on the job title and to write a cover letter that highlights the most significant worth points from your resume that you think the advertiser might be interested in. While your letter written in response to a job title can't hope to be as effective as one written in response to the advertiser's specific needs, it has a lot more going for it than the typical cover letter. What do you stand to gain by this format?
- First, your prospective boss knows you're the kind of a person who recognizes business problems-and, hopefully, his problems.
- Second, even before the advertiser turns a page, he knows you're a person who can do things he would like to see accomplished at his company. He doesn't have to grope around your resume looking for proof of your worth.
- Third, the advertiser will realize you cared enough about the opportunity presented in the ad to write a personalized cover letter rather than a transmittal letter like those he'll see the rest of the day.
- Fourth, your letter is a demonstration of your ability to write well-documented, businesslike correspondence in support of your position. The advertiser knows you could do the same thing for him.
Let's turn briefly to one job-search letter format I recommend you don't write, and that's a "curiosity rousing" response to blind ads. This kind of letter has only one purpose in mind: to whet the appetite of the reader; to force him to invite you to his office, where you can present your credentials in person. According to the curiosity-rousing formula, you do not include a resume with your response, nor do you even offer the requested information in a letter format. Instead, you acknowledge the position you are applying for, provide a synopsis of your work experience without naming the companies you worked with; and provide a list of your key worth points written in somewhat vague terms.
If your worth points are good enough, the letter may get a very positive first reading. Whether it gets you in the door is another question. Why am I a doubter? Simple, I had a number of clients try the technique. They forwarded a vague description of their backgrounds and worth points.
In almost every instance, those who heard back got this type of response:
The fact of the matter is this: Today curiosity is usually not sufficient, in and of itself, to assure you either a response or an interview. If this technique worked a decade ago, its novelty has now worn off, and advertisers are apparently less impressed with coy candidates than with those who deal from the top of the deck. What should be of even greater concern to you if you use a curiosity-rousing letter is that while you are sending in your resume in response to the advertiser's request, who knows how many other candidates may already be entering your prospective boss's office!
