If your interview was for a job you really want, regardless of how unsatisfactory the interview was, don't give up on it. Many a job has been landed by resourceful follow-up, in spite of an apparently unfavorable first interview. Appropriate action at this stage will very likely improve an employer's regard for you, because it shows a number of the characteristics that he or she is looking for: determination, perseverance, and resourcefulness. As you will recall, follow-up activities include analysis of the interview, a thank-you letter, and keeping third parties such as referrers or recruiters informed.
Another step, depending on the interview, is to research possible solutions to problems that the employer outlined in the interview. Follow this by a hard-sell follow-up letter and a telephone call.
Executive jobs often take a long time to fill.
Inaction is not necessarily a turn down. Furthermore, a turn down is not necessarily final.
Immediately after each interview, take 10 minutes to fill out a "Post-interview Analysis" report. Information there can be useful in making your follow-up letter most effective and in improving your inter viewing skill. Within two days make sure that you send a thank-you letter. Observe particularly that there is a paragraph which brings up some subjects that you had not been able to get into the interview. This thank-you note should be typewritten, except in the case of a friend when a short hand written note is acceptable. Not only does a thank-you provide a means to present your experience again, but it probably puts you in the small minority. A follow-up letter after each subsequent interview provides an additional opportunity for you to sell yourself and to show that you are a careful, caring professional.
Executive recruiters expect you to inform them promptly of the progress of each interview. Again, doing so is not only for their benefit; it often can help your cause and show you how your candidacy is going. Informing referrals of progress can also help your cause.
Few job hunters use what they learn in an initial interview to do things that can make a favorable impression in a second interview or after a turn down. For example, if you are interviewed for a job in a retail operation, visit one or more of the company's stores and observe things from the boss's standpoint. Very likely you will see things that could be questioned. In the industrial sales field, you could call on several customers or potential customers, representing yourself as being interested in working in the field or as a consultant working for a competitor of the company that interviewed you. From this you might get some very useful information that could be used to indicate to an employer that you have the company's interests in mind and that you have insight into its problems.
Harry Gray, whose prior job as president of a mini conglomerate, paid well over $100,000 a year, spent more than 40 hours between interviews with Belair Plastics dissecting its annual report and its 10-K, and talking with bankers, investment analysts, and so on. His homework paid off - he was shortly offered a vice presidency at Belair.
Cliff Butler learned in his first interview that Realistic Textiles was having trouble arranging new financing. After the interview Cliff made an inquiry with his connections in financial circles about the type of financing Realistic needed. From his research, he developed several possible approaches to this financing problem and impressed Realistic very favorably in a second interview. Such actions put you way ahead of most other candidates.
Usually a round of first interviews with six candidates takes two to three weeks at a minimum. This time span can work to your advantage, especially if you had a poor first interview. During the interim the employer's negative image of you may have faded somewhat as he or she has seen other candidates. Now prepare a careful "upon further reflection" letter, showing your experience in the most favorable light based on what you learned in the first interview. Mailed several weeks after that interview, this sometimes can put you back in the running. In this letter, stress things to which the interviewer responded favorably, positive achievements in areas you were most vulnerable on, things you didn't bring up, and research you've since done on problems the employer outlined in the interview.
Another aspect of your follow-up is keeping in touch with the employer with periodic phone calls. There are several applicants who landed excellent jobs after a four-month gap between their first and second interviews. In each case the applicants made follow-up calls every two or three weeks. Continue these calls every several weeks until you are told emphatically you are no longer a candidate or that the job has been filled.
