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Ten Things To Do After Your Job Interview

This article is more than 8 years old.

When you get home from a job interview, I hope you take your tie and jacket off or slip out of your pumps and reward yourself with a glass of wine or a nice gelato. You deserve it!

Here are ten more things to do after each job interview to keep the momentum going! I'll explain each step in more depth in a moment.

  1. Write down what you remember about the interview.
  2. Call a good friend on the phone or get together for coffee and run down the interview or the series of interviews.
  3. Follow up with post-interview thank-you letters to each person you talked with on your job interview.
  4. Expand on your brief thank-you letter with a more in-depth email message for each interviewer.
  5. While the ideas are flowing, jot down your thoughts about the major projects and challenges in the job you're interested in.
  6. Send out another Pain Letter while your mojo is high. Never let a good interview (or a bad one!) distract you from your job-search project.
  7. Create a list of things you'll do differently at your next job interview.
  8. Take a look at your LinkedIn profile. Now that you've talked to people like the people you hope will see your profile, is there anything you want to change in it?
  9. After a night's rest, write in your notebook or journal about the job opportunity you just interviewed for. How would you approach the assignment?
  10. Finally, put the interview to bed. Move on to the next target employer on your list and put the last one behind you.

Write down what you remember about the interview.

Your recall will be best the minute you get home from the job interview. Write down the names of the people you met with and write as much as you remember about each conversation.

What did each interviewer seem to care about? What brilliant observations did you make that you want to repeat in your post-interview thank-you letters, to bring you back to mind for each interviewer? Get it all on paper!

Call a good friend on the phone or get together for coffee and run down the interview or the series of interviews.

Our friends are better at analyzing interviews than we are, because you were there and you can't be objective. Run down the interview or set of interviews in as much detail as you can and let your friend react. Often our friends hear significant things that we miss.

Follow up with post-interview thank-you letters to each person you talked with on your job interview.

The first step in your follow-up is a polite handwritten note card to each interviewer. You won't be able to fit many words on each notecard, and you don't need to.

Just say "Dear Vince, it was wonderful to meet you today. Thanks very much for your terrific description of the chocolate molding process at Angry Chocolates. I'm looking forward to the next conversation! All the best, Randy."

Your handwritten thank you note is very important, because the biggest problem you face after your job interviews is that the interviewers forget who you are.

They will literally forget you unless you bring yourself back to mind by mentioning something specific that you and each interviewer talked about.

Expand on your brief thank-you letter with a more in-depth email message for each interviewer.

The second and final step in your post-interview thank you process is a more in-depth email message to each interviewer you met. Just like your notecards, each email message will be slightly different from the others, in case your interviewers compare notes!

In your email message, expand on the ideas you and each interviewer discussed:

Dear Vince,

I want to thank you for spending time with me yesterday chatting about the Marketing Coordinator position in your department. After I left you, I looked up the article you recommended (John Cena's terrific piece on the symbolism and sociological significance of Hershey's kisses) and found it fascinating. Thanks for that recommendation!

I'm excited to share ideas with you about expanding on your initial community-building efforts at Angry Chocolates in a future conversation. All the best to you and thanks again for a thought-provoking conversation!

Yours,

Randy Savage

While the ideas are flowing, jot down your thoughts about the major projects and challenges in the job you're interested in. 

At this stage you probably don't know whether you're going back for another interview at this company or not. That's okay! You might as well get prepared in case you get that invitation.

Think about the new information you've gained about the role, and especially about the Business Pain the new employee is being hired to solve.

What do you see as the major challenges in the job? What isn't working properly in the department right now? If you get invited back for another interview, you're going to want to dig into that topic!

Send out another Pain Letter while your mojo is high. Never let a good interview (or a bad one!) distract you from your job-search project.

Your job search isn't over until you accept an offer, so don't let one promising interview take you off your path! The more irons you have in the fire, the stronger your mojo will be.

The better your negotiating position will be, too! Don't sit around and wait to see whether you hear from these folks or not. Keep the job-search engine moving!

Create a list of things you'll do differently at your next job interview.

Every job interview is a learning process. There's no need to be critical of your interviewing style, but while your memories are fresh, think about things you'll do differently the next time. Would you like to have a stronger answer to a particular question you were asked?

Did you wish you had done a slightly different kind of pre-interview research? Write it all down so you can prepare even more thoroughly before your next interview, for these folks or for a different company!

Your "things to remember next time" list can include your interview attire, too! Maybe you wore a suit that made noise whenever you sat down or stood up.

You won't wear that suit to a job interview again! Maybe you wished you hadn't drunk so much coffee at the interview, because it made you jittery. Get your learning down on paper!

Take a look at your LinkedIn profile. Now that you've talked to people like the people you hope will see your profile, is there anything you want to change in it?

Each time you go to a job interview, your perception of your own talents and abilities can shift. You might realize driving home from an interview that you should say more than you do right now about your experience in one specialty or another.

Why not make those improvements to your LinkedIn profile right now?

After a night's rest, write in your notebook or journal about the job opportunity you just interviewed for. How would you approach the assignment?

How would you dig into the new job if you get it? That's a great topic for a second interview (keeping in mind that you don't want to give away the store at any interview!). How would you approach the new assignment during the first thirty, sixty and ninety days? Get it all on paper!

Finally, put the interview to bed. Move on to the next target employer on your list and put the last one behind you.

Now you've dumped everything possible out of your brain and you've gotten all the learning you can get out of the interview you just completed. You've sent your thank-you notes and follow-up thank-you emails.

Your next assignment is to put the interview out of your mind and move on to the next opportunity.

You're not going to wait by the phone. Only the people that get you, deserve you!