A couple months ago, I got a call from a nearby pet store upon completing their online application. I was offered an interview for the next day. I went, I spoke, they explained. They were to interview more people before deciding, after a week, whom to bring in for a second interview with the store manager.
I waited a few days. I thought, “I want this job. I don’t care that it doesn’t relate to my major whatsoever and that it pays little above minimum wage. I love animals, I love staying busy doing something completely useful, I need a job, and I want this job.”
As a shy individual, I was not sure that I made this fact apparent for my recent interviewees. So I did something I know best. I made a card. I hand-wrote my thank you and interest in the job, then attached a tiny ball of yarn made of thread wrapped around a cardboard circle. With my cat as a model, I decorated the card with paper silhouette cats to play with the ball of yarn.
My contact info is edited out here. Remember to add your number and/or email at the end.
I walked into the store that afternoon and explained to a cashier with a moment, “I have a thank you card to give for the interview I had last week.” A man standing nearby was the store manager. He took the card. “Have you been called for a second interview?”
“Not yet.”
He walked to a small office at the end of the row of cash registers, grabbed a monthly planner off the desk, and came back, asking, “Can you come in on Friday at 2:30?”
On Friday at 2:30, I was sitting in that office, ready for a second interview. Instead, the manager explained the grand impression my thank you card left. And that I had the job.
Here’s my secret. I walked into that pet store with a thank you card because I didn’t have anyone’s email. Also, there wasn’t enough time to use the postal service. Being my own personal messenger was the best thing I could do.
The effect of a thank you varies, of course. I hand-wrote a thank you for only one other interview. It was for an internship at a large public relations firm, and the emails I received were: a thank you for the thank you, and a notice that they had chosen someone else. But a thank you is better than no thanks, and an old-fashioned thank you is sometimes better than a regular thank you. Don’t ever forget your manners.
