Not only do I send notes, I write them on deckle-edged, cotton-rag paper with a real fountain pen.

@John I’m conceding on the merit of manners & doing something for the sake of being civil & courteous. The old-school line of thinking is that thank=you-letters make a difference in the hiring process. They may make a difference and influence the collective unconscious — and we might have a better society if everyone sent thank you notes. I’m just saying that they are not difference makers. If you’re looking for the edge in the interview process, look elsewhere.

@Breanne You are totes a shit-disturber and it’s killing me!!

@Melissa Oh man, I love it when Breanne stirs it up on my blog. I’m not sure she would really look down on someone for sending a thank-you-note, but I’m 100% sure that it’s the most awesome, punk rock HR thing I’ve read in a very long time.

Sure, it does eat up 8.5 seconds of my day to open (especially paper mail – gasp!) the card, and read through it’s 2 paragraphs… but I don’t think this qualifies as wasting my time. If I’m going to start taking issue with time wasters, I’ll focus my annoyance on candidates who apply to my open positions and are clearly not qualified, have not read the job description and still somehow think it makes sense to click the “apply” button. But for someone who not only read through my ridiculously long job description, put together a thorough, well-written resume and/or cover letter which opened the door to the interview… the least I can do is read their 2 paragraphs and move on.

Will their letter make me hire them? No. But to rule them out because they took time to follow up with me when they weren’t required to… that just seems like crazy-talk! That immediately rules out a large portion of potentially awesome employees who made the “mistake” of thanking you again.

My response to John Hollon:

I actually looked down upon someone sending me a thank you note after an interview. My thoughts are that if I wanted to hire you, I already would have based on your skills. The thank you note is a suck-up/brown nosing technique and I am not moved by it, rather actually annoyed. Save a tree, and save my time- don\

* Thank-you notes don’t determine if I am going to hire a person or not, ergo, thank-you notes are a waste of time that people shouldn’t spend their effort on.

I still think you are missing the boat here. I agree completely that you never hire a person because of a thank-you note — I never have, in all the hires I have made — but, that doesn’t mean thank-you notes are without value.

Thank-you notes are about manners and civility, about acknowledging that someone took their time to meet with you personally. And I would make the case that in this day and age, when recruiting and hiring is incredibly distant and impersonal, a thank you note is even more important than ever before.

The save-a-tree argument is nonsense. That’s PC run amuck and is hardly a reason to be discourteous. In my book, sending a thank-you note is always the right thing to do. Must we always look to do something only because we think it will gain us some advantage? Why not do something because it is courteous, civil, and right? Yes, sending a thank-you note after a job interview is old school, but as I said in my blog, good manners never go out of style.

@heyrocker I think this is a generational issue, but I’m 33 and we’re not very far apart in age.

@Jimmy My grandmother wants thank you letters. She also wants oatmeal, prunes, and to be left alone during the Wheel/Jeopardy hour.

@Michael I like your perspective. Why do we give a shit about thank you notes? Can we be more irrelevant as a function?

@J.Lee I’m 22.5 — just like my age. Thank you, again, for the ranking!