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[Klamor]

I was encouraged by my adviser as well as other professors in my department to make sure to send a thank-you letter to anyone with whom I had an interview.

I am not sure how others approach this, but I did my best to keep the letters as simple as possible. I simply thank the person for the opportunity to meet with them and wish them well. If there is something that I feel I perhaps could have explained better in the interview, I may go into it briefly just to "round out" an answer to a question.

What I desperately try not to do is sound desperate. I may be, but I know it doesn't sound good. At the same time, coming from the South, I was always taught that sending a thank-you letter was simply good manners.

As an aside, I did get one response to a thank-you letter that said my letter had "cleared up" a possible concern that the chair had following my interview.

I hope this helps. By the way, I am currently an adjunct professor in religious studies who is headed to an assistant-professor position at a small, private arts school (not the one that responded to my thank-you letter, I didn't get the one campus interview they were offering).

[Anon]

As a candidate who went on several interviews this year and who received almost as many offers as interviews, I have a different perspective.

When you are interviewing us (and we are interviewing you), you take time out of your busy day. You wine and dine us, you make us feel comfortable and included.

Maybe candidates write thank-you notes out of gratitude rather than desperation!

[Thank-you-note writer]

Well, when I read the post from Anon (the second Anon on 3-6-03), I certainly did feel put in my place. Anon writes, I assume in response to the fact that this thread received comments from those who not only wrote thank-you notes but claimed to be sincere about them:

"so clearly we need to think outside our own heads and imagine the recipient and their concerns. This way of taking the whole world into consideration, not just our own internal world, is called by various terms, the 'big picture,' 'emotional intelligence,' 'mindfulness,' and many other phrases."
 
Anon, I think what you miss is that people who make it to the interview stage in an academic search are both sincerely thankful and thinking about how they will be perceived. Let me tell you what I thought when I wrote a thank-you note to the one school for which I didn't have a feel for whether it was entirely appropriate: I erred on the side of politeness, because I thought sending no note, if one was expected, would be much more offensive than the search chair having to throw away a letter without reading it. I wrote my thank-you notes on thank-you cards, so there is no way that they would be mistaken for official correspondence, by the way.  

To accuse those who err on the side of being polite as being emotionally stupid and mindless is a recipe for starting a flame war, which I don't expect in this forum. It strikes me that perhaps, like those in a position of power, those chairing search committees might themselves be generous and mindful of the pressures that candidates face (including finding the money to pay rent on meager adjunct salaries while at the same time spending money on the academic job search, knowing that the most likely scenario is that, even if they have a lot of interviews, they won't be hired, knowing that their entire futures, personally and professionally, in many ways lie in the hands of search committees). Chairmen of search committees must note that all advice on the subject of thank-you notes on the Internet and in books says that such notes are the norm, and so candidates are merely trying to follow what they perceive to be the rules.

To characterize the actions of a candidate as reflecting a self-absorbed desire to be "true" to his or her "feelings" is both condescending and out of touch with what most candidates experience on the market -- which is thinking constantly about the "feelings," or should I say judgments -- of those who may or may not hire them.

To insult the posters in this forum by comparing them to whiney, grade-grubbing students is completely out of line. Most of the posters in this forum have the same amount of education as those who sit on search committees; some were educated at better schools and they have publications and they have teaching experience. Just because they haven't yet been lucky enough to find employment in this profession -- and it is about luck, not qualifications, when it comes down to it ("fit" is a euphemism for luck) -- does not mean that they should not be treated with respect.

I get that your opinion is that sending thank-you notes is the wrong thing to do. Perhaps, had I heard that advice from multiple sources prior to my job search, I would not have sent thank-you notes. That said, I did a great deal of research about protocol in job searches, and every single source contradicts your opinion.  

Also, I understand that a flood of thank yous from people who were not interviewed would make anyone irritated. If people are doing that, they should be advised against it. But if the people you interview for a position send them, I can't imagine it is that much of a drain on the search chairman's time. In my discipline, the maximum number of candidates who receive interviews would be about 20, and in most cases the number would be only half that. Getting 10 notes in the mail shouldn't be that much of a burden, I wouldn't think, especially since no one is holding a gun to your head to read them, and you are not required to respond.

I think that perhaps it might be worthwhile to talk about what disciplines/areas of the country people are representing, as well as the kinds of schools that are in play in this discussion. Since searches vary widely depending on those factors, perhaps it would be interesting if some of the irritated people revealed this kind of information so that the advice here could be more useful to the job seekers in this forum.

It may well be that what applies in the humanities does not apply in the sciences, or what applies in the Northeast does not apply in the Midwest, or what applies at a Research-I university does not apply at a small liberal-arts college. Such information would be useful, and would turn this thread into a valuable source of information instead of a flame war.

[Invisible adjunct]

Anon writes:

"Every action we take in public is going to be perceived by an 'audience.'"

Yes, quite. And that would include the action you just took of comparing the job-seekers in this thread to C students who can't understand why they don't get A grades.  

With all due respect, Anon, you seem to be missing the point.  Post-interview thank-you letters are the norm in many areas outside of the academy and have been for many years. That norm is now spreading to the academy. Job-seeking-advice literature is quite clear on this point. See, for example, Mary Morris Heiberger and Julia Miller Vick's Career Talk column elsewhere on this site:

"End the search by finding a good balance between appearing interested and overeager. Do send a thank-you letter to the key people who managed your on-campus interview. Don't write to everyone you spoke with briefly during the day" (see http://chronicle.com/jobs/2001/02/2001022301c.htm). Similar advice can be found in their Academic Job Search Handbook, and in any number of other job-search handbooks and advice columns.

I happen to agree with the view that post-interview thank-you letters will often seem forced and artificial. But I am also aware that such letters are the new convention. Now, what has any of this to do with "an incredibly self-centred" culture? And speaking of people who think their own "personal motives are justification for just about anything," why can you not state your objections to the new norm of the thank-you letter without insulting other participants in this thread?

[Barb]

In response to your question about what has been advised, the answer is absolutely nothing. It's sad, but true.Only direct questions receive answers. If one does not know what to ask, how will one be prepared?

[Chairing a search]

Thanks, Invisible Adjunct (which I hope is not an accurate assessment of your state), for the information on what graduate students are being told to do. I think it's unfortunate that it's becoming a convention. I'm happy to report that of the nine candidates we interviewed by phone, only two succumbed to this convention, and the letters had absolutely no bearing on whether or not we interviewed them.

There is one candidate who is overdoing it after a campus interview, but again, our decision not to hire him is based on his interview, not the letters. If our preferred candidate were sending letters, we would probably not be as annoyed as we are by the other candidate's letters.  The letters played no part in our decision, but they seem now to indicate that the candidate knows he didn't do well at the interview and is trying to make up for it.

To those who saw fit to chastise me, please remember that I was on the market for five years, up until this year.  I know what repeated rejection feels like. But I cannot believe that I was passed over for any job on the basis of not sending a thank-you note. I didn't send any for my current job, and here I am.

[Binky]

My wife is a physician. When she interviewed with residency programs, a letter or card thanking the program for an interview was mandatory. The lack of such a card/letter was interpreted to mean that "this person isn't interested in coming here."

Last month I interviewed on campus for a tenure-track position. Aftwerward I sent an e-mail to the chair of the department (who also chairs the search committee) with a question about the position that did not arise during the interview but that I felt was important. He replied the next day.

In the e-mail I also thanked everyone involved for their time and effort, because it was an extremely well-run interview. I wrote in the e-mail that I would follow up more formally with a written note of thanks, which I sent.

I do not feel those communications smack of desperation. While the chair might just skim and pitch my letter, I feel that at least the good efforts of his colleagues should be brought to his attention.

If the interview had been a very bad experience, I probably would have written a letter politely explaining why.

[JPM]

Many of these posts seem to be about sending a thank-you letter after a conference interview or a phone interview. To those of you who are on search commitees, is it perceived as desperate if a candidate you have interviewed on campus for two days sends a brief e-mail to the coordinator of the visit that says something like, "Thanks for taking the time to set things up. I enjoyed the visit, etc."?

I've written such notes so far for all the on-campus interviews I've done. I'll be really dismayed to hear that I've given someone else a nudge in the candidate rankings because he or she did not send a note.

This year I've done seven interviews so far (all but one at large research universities). I have three more to go. And think I've typically sent a short thank-you note to one or two of the people I've met with. So far five of the seven interviews have resulted in someone else being hired because they are presumably the "better fit" (or so says the search committee).

Were my short, thankful e-mails just enough to give an equally qualified candidate the edge? I sent those e-mails only to the person who originally called me to set up the interview and/or took me to the airport. Never to everyone. The notes were intended to say thanks; I didn't send them because I felt desperate. I did not feel at all desperate in the early days of the search when I had many interviews lined up.

After my last interview  (last week), I sent three e-mail messages, including one to the chair. I did feel a little desperate this time. Of course I am, since my options are dwindling. I'm in the third year of a three-year postdoctoral fellowship. I am getting desperate.

For what it's worth, I actually received a thank-you e-mail from my contact at one of the large Canadian universities I interviewed at. They beat me to it. It did not seem desperate, just honest. It said, "Thanks for coming. We enjoyed having you here, etc." Maybe Canadians are simply less fickle and more gracious.

[Binky]

JPM, maybe you are right about Canadians . . .

I seriously doubt sending a simple message of thanks to people who chauffered you around, talked with you, fed you, and housed you during a campus interview would give a less-gracious candidate an edge.

[Anon V]

In response to the question, what are advisers telling their graduate students? I have applied to various teaching jobs over the last few months, and to be honest, I have received very little advice as to how to even apply to these jobs (although if I ask specific questions, my adviser gladly responds). The information I have learned has come from Web sites such as this one (which discuss subjects such as how to write a teaching-philosophy statement, what kinds of questions are typically asked during phone or on-site interviews, etc.).

As to whether I actually write or will write thank-you letters, I have had a few on-site interviews and have a few more scheduled. During my first interview, I really did not know what to expect, I was extremely anxious, and was not prepared for the arduous schedule, which involved meeting a new person every 30 minutes for two days straight.

However, I really felt the search committee was phenomenally collegial, and committee members went out of their way to make the interview process as pleasant as possible, etc. I debated whether I should write a letter, but in the end decided that they would pick the candidate who was the best match, and I did not want to pester them while they made their final decision in the next few days (so I did not send one).

I was not selected, and part of me still wishes I had sent a thank-you letter, not because that would have changed their decision, but just to let them know that I appreciate the work they put into making my interview experience a pleasant one. For my future interviews, I'm still leaning toward not sending thank-you letters because I feel that, ultimately, the letters will not impact my application for the job. The members of the search committee can certainly remember who they interviewed over the course of a few days without a reminder from me.