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So I had an interview last week and objectively I think it went really well. The interview was supposed to be 1 hour and it went 90 minutes.
At the end I always like to ask for a card so I can e-mail them a thank you for their time.
Both interviewers, who told me upfront that they may not be my manager, said per HR they are not allowed to give them out and HR was strict and all contact needed to be done through HR? That is the first time I have ever been told that and only the 2nd time they refused me a card. I was surprised because they genuinely seemed impressed with what I had to say.
What are your thoughts? I am hoping some of the hiring managers and HR folks can chime in.
It could be for various reasons but it's sensible. One most likely is the interviewers may provide input (whether to give a green light or not for hire) but shouldn't be the "go to" people in between the you, the candidate, and the company. The same way a client has to go through the right people (like managers) in a company and can't bypass them to reach other employees. Perhaps from past experiences, some people that interviewed but didn't get the job started spamming the interviewers.
Thank you letters/notes are nice but they are very 1998 in my opinion and are a waste of your time, or it's just a template that you use for everyone and it doesn't add much more than the resume. In fact, you might do well on an interview and the hiring manager likes some aspect (say hiring manager feels confident you'll fit in senior position), but you compose a thank you letter which might leave them with another impression (e.g. based on what he emphasized, this guy actually might not be a fit). The hiring manager for the most part already knows if you'd be a fit or not and a letter would mostly be extraneous.
Cover letters, however, still are relevant esp. on online job portals that provide for them as it's helps distinguish a person from the rest on first pass.
Thanks for the quick responses. This is a Fortune 500 tech company so that probably has something to do with such a regimented process.
It's ironic because another Fortune 500 tech company I just finished the process with, and now waiting to hear the good news , was completely different the HR professional was great she gave me the AVP's e-mail so I could e-mail him a thank you. She thanked me for my great follow up with her and the sales managers.
It could be for various reasons. One most likely is the interviewers may provide input (whether to give a green light or not for hire) but shouldn't be the "go to" people in between the candidate and the company.
Thank you letters/notes are nice but they are very 1998 in my opinion. Cover letters, however, still are relevant esp. on online job portals that provide for them.
Thank you your response rings true. I disagree though you should always send a thank you e-mail. I was interviewing with an out of state company and didn't care for their lack of candor so for the first time I sent no thank you e-mail and I never heard from them even though I did well on the skype interview IMO.
I will reconsider my stance on cover letters I never due them and I am getting a good amount of interest in me. I basically make my objective a mini cover letter and it's working.
The city I live in hired a number civil service positions last year and the interview board was prohibited from shaking hands with the candidates. I guess they didn't want someone getting slipped a secret handshake...
In my field, the hiring managers may know our field, but they don't know employment-related law at all. We've had hiring managers say stupid things to candidates, imply promises of a job to people, make statements that ended up being interpreted as discriminatory. So apart from the interview itself, all communication between candidates and the company must go through HR.
I could see the motivation for prohibiting hiring mgrs from giving out their cards to candidates. HR and Compliance depts can just barely manage what managers talk about in the interviews and in the lobby before and after the inteview; we don't want to add the risk of telephone calls to the mix.
I often participate in hiring rounds (we do panel interviews) and I'm reluctant to hand out my card to applicants. I don't particularly want to give my work email, office phone, and mobile number to someone who doesn't need to be contacting me. I've had situations happen before where an applicant shared my contact info with other people and I started getting resumes and phone calls from complete strangers.
We aren't allowed to give references or verify dates of employment, or anything. Everything hiring related is directed to HR. Reason being, we don't know squat about hiring laws so it's a liability issue.
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, was completely different the HR professional was great she gave me the AVP's e-mail so I could e-mail him a thank you. She thanked me for my great follow up with her and the sales managers.
