Job Ready Tip #1: Thank You Notes

Job Ready Tip Number 1:  Handwrite and Mail/Deliver Thank You Notes.

In a market with TONS more applicants than open job positions, wouldn’t you want to do everything you possibly could to help you land a job? I would.

That’s what struck me about this blog post I just read on culpwrit, titled “Wow Factor: Handwritten Thank You.”

Notice what the author writes here:

“Our wise receptionist . . . stopped me Friday morning to show me something she’s never seen before: three hand-written envelopes containing thank-you notes.”

Each of these handwritten thank you notes were prepared by a smart job candidate for the three individuals who had

A professional Thank You card.

conducted the interviews, and each commented on how “unusual” and “memorable” such a gesture was.

Memorable. Unusual.

Wow! Sounds like EXACTLY the results I’d want after interviewing with a prospective employer (or client).

ACTION ITEM:

As simple as it might sound, if you want to help prospective employers remember you in a good way, then mail or hand-deliver a handwritten Thank You Note after the fact to the person you met with (one that will arrive within 1-3 days). And if you met with more than one person, send each their own handwritten Thank You Note.

I know that’s really basic, even obvious. However, something so basic might be the one thing you do that gets you invited back for a 2nd interview or helps you land the job.

Job Ready Tips: Standing Out in a Crowd

Although I’ve barely begun to explain the background behind (or the premise of) being (or becoming) Job Ready, I realized a moment ago that sometimes you have to just jump into the deep end of the pool instead of slowly dipping a toe into the water.

What do such platitudes mean? Simply this, although I do intend to continue to lay out Job Ready-ness within this blog (and what all of that means), I also just came across something on the Web that I’ve got to share right now.

So . . . moving forward, as I come across or feel impressed about an idea, concept or thought that I believe will help you the reader become more Job Ready, I will share it here under the heading of a Job Ready Tip. And the first Job Ready Tip arrives momentarily in the very next post.

Choosing Public Relations

As it turns out, I was 2+ years into my college career at Brigham Young University and I still had no idea what major I wanted to enter or career I wanted to pursue. Thankfully, I happened upon a brown-bag address in the Wilkinson Center at BYU being delivered by my then favorite author on spiritual topics: Truman Madsen.

I missed the opening of his presentation, but I caught the most important part — at least the part that seemed absolutely perfect for my circumstances. In addressing the question of how to choose a major and pursue a career, Madsen suggested three points:

1. Choose something you enjoy
2. Choose something you’re good at
3. Choose something you can change the world with while supporting your family

Interestingly, I do not remember anything else from his talk. But I do know that those three points resonated throughout my very being. I thought about his talk all the way home that afternoon, and as I did, I realized that the classes that I had enjoyed the most and had gotten the best grades in were EACH in Mass Communications. That was an incredibly eye-opening realization for me, and it led me on a short-lived but important journey to discover what majors were available in the Department of Mass Communications at BYU.

Long-story short (and for a variety of reasons, some of which I was actually mistaken about), I decided that Public Relations made the most sense for me versus pursuing a Mass Communications degree with an emphasis in Journalism, Advertising or Interpersonal Communications. And in spite of the fact that I only managed a C+ in my “Introduction to Public Relations” class — thank you very much, Dr. Bradley — the truth is that I excelled in PR and ended up with a GPA in my major of better than 3.5 on a 4.0 scale. (Not remarkable by itself, but given that I had been flirting with an overall 2.0 GPA, 3.5+ was pretty good for me.)

And for the past 27+ years, I’ve been doing PR every day of my career. And for the most part, not only has it been a blast (aka, I enjoy it), but I’m actually quite good at it too. I’ve since become quite good at many of the other areas of mass communications and marketing as well, which is nice. But I’ve also learned that done properly, PR has made it possible to support my family fairly well while helping to change the world.