Hi! I'm Nick Dimitrov, the founder of Amazon Bound: a service, which helps prepare talented
job-seekers to interview effectively with Amazon and other companies that practice behavioral
interviewing techniques. Today, I'd like to spend a few minutes to
answer a question we're getting frequently, and the question is: 'What is the best way
to send 'Thank-you' notes to my interviewers after the end of the interview?'
Amazon and a lot of other companies would have you interview with five or so employees
of the company. And, usually, it's a very good professional practice to send individualized
'Thank-you' notes to each of these interviewers before they've had the chance to get together
and debrief and decide whether to hire you or not.
So, we get a lot of questions if it's OK to reach out directly to each interviewer via
LinkedIn or some other forum and thank them directly, and the answer is 'No.' Unless you
know the person from your previous professional experience or unless you've developed this
amazing rapport during the interview, usually it's not a good idea to reach out directly
to the interviewer. Because, doing so could potentially backfire, if the interviewer considers
your outreach as being too fraternizing, or, worst-case scenario, as you attempting to
influence the interviewer or provide some sort of a sales push in order to improve your
chances during the debrief. Now, what you can do instead is you can send
one large email to the recruiter with whom you've been working throughout your interview
process. And literally segment that large email with individual sections dedicated to
each of the people you met with. And ask the recruiter to literally copy and paste each
individual section into separate emails that they can send on to the people you met with.
Now, what do you say in these individual sections? What's a good way to write a 'Thank-you' note?
There are two points to keep in mind. One, make the note personal and customizable, and
by saying personal, I mean personalized. The best 'Thank-you' note would refer to something
that you discussed with the interviewer: whether it was an interesting question, an interesting
exchange. Whether it was some sort of good information about the background of this person.
Just thank the person but also make sure to point to that interesting piece of information,
that specific exchange (maybe a good question you heard), and build the rest of your 'Thank-you'
note around that. And, of course, end on a positive note and thank this person for the
experience. The second point I want to talk about is,
a lot of customers ask us if it's OK to use the 'Thank-you' note to provide edits or corrections
to answers they've provided during the interview. And the answer is 'No.' Usually, the interviewer
is going to use only the duration of the interview to determine whether to hire you or not. And
if you try to backpedal, or provide revisionist history, in your 'Thank-you' note, that, best-case
scenario, is likely not going to impact the interviewer. Worst-case scenario, it could
backfire. Unless, the interviewer has, for some reason, asked you to follow up, explicitly,
coming up with edits to your responses in the 'Thank-you' note, usually is not a good
idea. Now, having said this, you can use an exchange
that you've had with the interviewer for the personalized point that I mentioned earlier.
You can show a vocally self-critical muscle by referring to a mistake you made, without
trying to correct it. You could say something along the lines of: Thank you for the interview.
I truly appreciated the experience and I recall particularly this one question where, boy,
did I make a mistake, but it is what it is. I truly appreciate your perspective which
was different from mine and I learned a lot. No matter what happens, I thank you for your
time and I look forward to your feedback. So, make it to the point. Do not backpedal.
Be vocally self-critical, if you've made a mistake. Use the recruiter as your central
conduit to send individual and personalized 'Thank-you' notes. And that should help you
with your follow-up process to the Amazon interview or any other interview, for that
matter. Best of luck. Stay in touch.