Thank you for not saying thank you.
The Get a Job Blog
In this week’s Get a Job Blog we’re taking a look at Thank You Notes.
Yesterday I had a very strange thing happen. I had an interview with Salesforce. You know Salesforce. They’re the company that took a dump on the once pristine San Francisco skyline with their behemoth monstrosity of a building that now, due to COVID, is mostly empty!
Don’t get me wrong I don’t want to see anyone out of work, but because Salesforce offers mostly software applications for companies they don’t really need anyone to be there in person anyway and they’re making so much money they can probably stand to have the building remain empty for, well, ever probably.
Anyway! I initially was approached by a recruiter about a Producer role with Salesforce. Sent my resume and portfolio in, heard back that they wanted to interview. The interview was initially scheduled by their StaffUp people for last week, but it was then pushed to this past Monday. Apparently the interviewer was on PTO last week so everything had to push to this week. I know that seems extraneous, but I think it is a very important detail to remember as we get into what happened next.
The interview went really well. The interviewer and I actually went beyond our allotted time because we were enjoying chatting so much. They liked my portfolio. They notified me of the next steps. Wonderful I thought. The interview was late in the day Monday so I chose Tuesday morning as a good time to do what I always do and send a short thank you note to the interviewer —
And it is here my job hunting friends where I shortly thereafter encountered something I hadn’t yet witnessed in the wild.
I received an email from my recruiter forwarding an email from the Salesforce Staff Up rep stating…
There is so much wrong with this I’m having a little trouble deciding which aspect to touch on first, but let’s dive in.
- It is never EVER a bad idea to send a thank you note. Even after this exchange I stand by my decision to send one and I’d do it again regardless of whatever insane red tape Salesforce has self-imposed on their hiring managers.
- Sending a thank you note to someone I spoke to over Google Hangouts for 45min should not require that I send it through two additional gatekeepers.
- Saying ‘Cheers’ and then ‘Thanks’ back-to-back is redundant and exposes the sender as being ill-equipped to teach others anything about the etiquette of business correspondence.
- I’m slightly concerned at Salesforce’s inability to discern between a simple thank you and something more intrusive.
- Would it have killed the StaffUp rep to just say, ‘While we appreciate him taking the time to say thank you it is required that all communication proceed through the proper channels yadda yadda yadda.”?
Now quickly back to the scheduling snafu which resulted in my interview being pushed due to the interviewer being on PTO. All of these extra cooks in the kitchen spend so much time trying to regulate that they actually mess up the aspects of the interview process that are truly important.
I’m sure some of you are looking at the exchange above and saying, ‘Wow Matt you’re overreacting.’ Which is totally fine. I overreact a lot. I’m not sure you should actually be reading a blog from me on the subject of getting a job except to say, I’ve had a lot of them and regardless of what anyone says the bottom line is this — ALWAYS send a thank you note.
How do you feel about recruiters? Are they actually helpful? Or have they done more harm than good to your job search?
Do you send thank you notes? Do you not send them? If so, why not?
