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.

The Backstory Behind Job Ready

To begin to understand what Job Ready means, it will probably help to share a bit about me and my background.

Although I didn’t know it when I was young, I’ve been in sales since I was 10-years-old. I was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area by good parents in a poor-to-middle class family as the eldest of five kids (two of whom were handicapped) that were born six-and-a-half years apart. When

Isn't that a cool-looking 3-speed Stingray bike?

I realized that my parents could not afford to buy me a three-speed Schwinn Stingray bicycle, I decided to take matters into my own hands by sending away for a Christmas card catalog found in an ad in the back of my Boy’s Life magazine.

The premise was simple: Sell 35 boxes of Christmas cards and earn a bike. So that’s what I did. I went door to door, I called on relatives, I bugged people at our Church, I approached just about anyone. And after a few months, I had sold 36 boxes of Christmas cards. Boy did I look cool on my bright yellow Schwinn Stingray bike with its metallic gold banana seat, the three-speed shifter and the wheelie bar I added on the back.

As it turns out, I also had a bit of the go-getter or hustler in me. That’s how I ended up collecting newspapers, aluminum cans, and boxes and boxes of broken glass to pay for my way for a month-long trip to visit cousins in Utah when I was 12-years-old. And I had the classic job as a newspaper boy for my early teen years as my first steps as an entrepreneur. And after my first employment-free semester at Brigham Young University, I ended up working my way through school where I was always employed (at least part-time) during college.

However, it wasn’t until after I returned to BYU in 1977 following two years of volunteer missionary service to the greater Washington, D.C. area (more selling, right?), that I found my future career in the College of Fine Arts and Communications. Specifically, I was gonna go into the field of Public Relations, and I did.

Are You Job Ready?

Thirteen-point-three-seven-million (13.37 million). That’s the number of adults 20-years-old and older who are officially out of work today. At least that’s what the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics claims in its latest jobs report.

The Great Recession (which got its start in late 2007) officially ended in June 2009. That’s according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Yeah, right. Try telling that to the 13.37 million Americans who are “officially” out of work. Or better yet, try telling that to the four-to-six million additional U.S. adults who are underemployed or who have stopped looking for jobs.

No, I believe if we’re completely honest with ourselves, there are really closer to 18 million to 20 million Americans who are out of work today. And that’s why I’ve decided to write this blog.

In spite of continuing tough economic circumstances, both here in America and abroad, I believe that anyone can take specific steps to change their opportunities for economic advancement and achieve goals as broad as simply paying off credit card debt or as serious as achieving financial independence. Because of recent technological advancements, I now know that such steps can follow two separate but inter-related paths:

• Preparing oneself for a better job, or
• Branching into the world of entrepreneurism.

The key is being Job Ready.

Job Ready? What’s that? More on “that” in my next post.