Jake's Talent & Learning Newsletter
Those Pesky Thank-You Notes
Greetings, everyone! And as always, a special welcome to those of you receiving this newsletter for the first time.
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Last week, several people in my network shared an article from Business Insider titled: "I've been hiring people for 10 years, and I still swear by a simple rule: If someone doesn't send a thank-you email, don't hire them."
The article got a lot of praise as it made the rounds on LinkedIn.
I think this is a horrible idea.
I'm going to share my thoughts about why I think the TYNOD Approach (Thank-You Note Or Die Approach) is foolish. I'll also suggest something you can do instead that is much more useful.
Buckle up! This one got me going a bit...
The author offers two main arguments. I'll tackle them one at a time:
Argument #1) A Thank-You Note signals that the candidate is interested in the role.
My response is quite simple: No, it doesn't. All it shows is that the person is aware there is an expectation that they ought to send a Thank-You Note.
More importantly, not every job applicant may be aware of this unwritten expectation! It's a huge assumption that this practice is ubiquitous - especially for entry-level positions.
This is also an elitist view.
I think of many of my undergraduate students, who definitely do not know that a Thank-You Note is apparently a job application requirement. They're also of a generation that uses email very differently than most of the hiring managers they're likely to encounter.
Enough readers voiced this concern that the author addressed it in a rebuttal article, offering: "I have not observed that a person of any particular background does or does not send a thank-you but would welcome any broader research or data that might suggest otherwise."
After 10 years of hiring, the author now reflects back doesn't remember this being a problem. That's supposed to be evidence? Availability heuristic, recency bias, confirmation bias, IKEA effect, and a handful of other cognitive biases come to mind....
The author's dismissive reply also assumes that their industry offers a generalizable representation of hiring practices across the board. Not all industries are like this in the way they interview, interact, hire, etc. (#notallindustries).
More concretely, have you ever interviewed someone who sent a Thank-You Note but ultimately didn't prove to have interest? I certainly have. Simply getting a Thank-You Note is not evidence of real interest.
Argument #2) The sending of a Thank-You Note is another data point that can inform the hiring decision, which is important, as it is a "process that's based on very few data points".
As a general rule of thumb, I'm all for trying to get more, quality data. I also agree that hiring processes often lack useful information.
But if a check-the-box Thank-You Note is relied on as a meaningful data point, you're in trouble. Effort should be concentrated on improving the interviewing and hiring process with tools like psychometrics, behavioral interviews, inter-rater reliability checks, work-sample products, and other approaches that have some predictive power. I would not want to run a talent acquisition team that was making hiring decisions based on the unresearched practice of sending obligatory form-emails.
But here's my real, big-picture objection to the TYNOD Approach: It encourages a culture where tacit rules and unproductive norms permeate the organization. This ensures that undiscussed expectations and "knowing how the game is played here" are reified as standard from the moment that someone first interacts with the organization. Performance becomes as much about playing an unspoken game as it does job-task competence. This suggests that there will be an inevitable gap between espoused values and enacted values, which will lower employee commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors.
So what to do instead? Try this:
The next time you interview someone, conclude the interview by saying something like: "I know it's often customary to send a Thank-You Note after a meeting like this, but I find that to be silly and antiquated. Certainly, you should reach out to me with any questions our thoughts you might have, but please don't send an obligatory note just because it's done elsewhere. And this is not a trick, by the way, I really mean it!"
Then, see how they react.
Do they react to this warm, humanizing gesture by thanking you for acknowledging a foolish practice? Do they try to be overly formal and diminish this attempt at building rapport? Do they ignore your advice and send you a Thank-You Note anyway?
Now that's a meaningful data point.
[end rant]
As always, do let me know if there's a topic you'd like me to write about in an upcoming newsletter!