How to Follow Up After a Job Interview

How to Follow Up After a Job InterviewHow to Follow Up After a Job InterviewAfter you have ajob interview, its important to follow up andthank your interviewerfor taking the timeto meet. Along with expressing appreciation, your thank-you letter, schmelzglas, or call is an opportunity to highlight your relevant qualificationsshow your enthusiasm for the rolemention important details that didnt come up during the interview. When you are selected for a job interview, it means that youre a serious contender for the job. Thats why its important to take the time to follow up after every singlejob interview, including in-person and phone interviews, as well assecond interviews. By following up, youll remind the interviewer that youre a strong candidate for the job. Youll reinforce that youre qualified and should be given serious consideration. Sending a thank-you note alsoshows that youre interested in the lokalitt. If an employer is deliberating between two candidates with similar qualific ations, a thank-you note could give you an edgeoverthecompetition. Heres mora information on what to say and how to time your communication. How to Follow up After a Job Interview If possible, collect business cards from everyone you meet during your interview. That way, youll have peoples contact information on hand. If that isnt feasible, checkLinkedInfor theinterviewers job titles, contact information, and the correct spelling of their names. If the information isnt listed, look up interviewers on the company website or call the companys mainline. A receptionist should be able to access the company directory and help you gather up details. 130 Watch Now 7 Things to Do Right After Your Interview What to Include in Your Follow-Up Email or Letter Promote your candidacy.Use your follow-up note to reiterate your interest in the job and the company. Tell the interviewer why you are qualified.Highlight your relevant skills that are specific to the jobs requirements. What did y ou forget to say?Mention anything you wish you had said, but didnt, during the interview. Clean up interview mistakes.If you misspoke during your interview or answered a question poorly, your thank-you note isa goodplace to rephrase and clarify what you intended to say. Include your contact information. Make it easy for the interviewer to get back in touch by including your phone number and email address in your correspondence. Follow-Up Email Message and Thank-You Letter Tips Follow the guidelines below when crafting your follow-up notes. Send athank-you letteroremailto everyone who interviewed you. It can be helpful to jot down some quick notes immediately after yourinterview to remind yourself of topics discussed and points you want to cover. Review examplesofthank-you lettersif youre not sure what to write. Email is the fastest way to say thank-youafter a job interview, especially if the interviewers hinted that theyll be making a quick decision. Its perfectly acceptable to send athank you email message. Consider sending ahandwritten thank-you note in addition to your email message. Keep a schachtel of thank-you cards and a book of stamps handy.Takingthetimetowriteanote,putastamponit,andmailyourthank-youwill serve as another reminderthat you care enough about the job. In some industries, such as print publishing,handwritten notesare mora common. Make sure to use your best handwriting Dont wait.Send your note within 24 hours of the interview, sooner if youre emailing. The saying he who hesitates is lost can hold true when youre onthejobhunt. Proofread your follow-up lettersbefore you send them. A typo or agrammatical error can knock you out of contention. Be particularly mindful of peoples names spelling those incorrectly will definitely be noticed. Review an Example Subject Thank You Customer Service Associate PositionDear Mr./Ms. Last NameThank you for taking the time to meet with me regarding the Customer Service Associate job. The position seem s like a strong match for my skills and abilities, and I believe I would be an asset to your company.The customer-first culture of the Bates Company meshes closely with the customer service skills I have acquired during my previous employment.In addition to my enthusiasm, I will bring to the position strong communication skills, attention to detail, and the ability to effectively and diplomatically resolve challenging customer issues.If you have any questions, or I can provide you with further information regarding my candidacy, please dont hesitate to ask.I very much appreciate the time you took to interview me. I am very interested in working for you and look forward to hearing from you regarding the position.Sincerely,Your NamePhoneEmail Expand Follow-Up Phone Call Tips Even though its easier to send a quick email, making a follow-up phone call can help your candidacy for the job. Whatsmore, if the job at hand involves a lot of phone time, calling to say thanks shows you have the strong communication skills required for the position. In additionto saying thank you for consideringyou for the job, you canshare afew of your key qualifications. If youre feeling nervous, you can make a list of points you want to mention ahead of time. Always start by saying who you are (use your full name), the position you interviewed for, and when you met.You can also mention anything you forgot to say during the interview. Follow Hi, Mr. Matherly. This is Janice Burlington. I interviewed for the Customer Service Associate position, and wanted to thank you for taking the time to meet with me yesterday.I am very interested in the position. Please dont hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or theres any additional information I can provide. You can reach me at 555-555-5555. Thanks again, and I hope to hear from you soon. ExpandHeres more about how to follow up a job interview with a phone call. Key Takeaways Always say thank you after an interview Its your si ngle most important post-interview action.Send your email or letter ASAP Dont delay. Aim to send a letter within 24 hours of the interview. Send a thank-you to every interviewer.Reinforce your qualifications As well as saying thanks, use your letter to show why you are a good candidate for the position.

Taking Trauma Out of the Brain

Taking Trauma Out of the Brain Taking Trauma Out of the Brain The hell of the battlefield can make hell in the life of the solider, long after hes put down his gun. About 15 percent of U.S. soldiers returning from recent wars have been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder. Why one solider suffers from the disorder while others do not may never be known, but now researchersat Tel-Aviv University have found a way to train soldiers to significantly reduce the chance of being affected by PTSD.In less than extreme situations, fear is healthy. And fear is learned. Put a part in a situation that once proved dangerous and theyll likely feel a surge of fear. But when events go beyond dangerous and into the realm of trauma, the subsequent learned fear can become debilitating. Just how fear and posttraumatic stress disorder become debilitating is not well understood. But one thing is well known During the experience of fear, the amygdalae (two small parts at the end of the hippocampus, deep in the brain) become quite active.The amygdala is a brain structure that serves as a kind of alarm bell in our brain, says Jackob Nimrod Keynan, a researcher in cognitive neuroscience at the Sagol Center for Brain Functions in the Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, And the problem starts when this alarm bell goes out of control. We all need to recognize danger, but if youre at home and you hear the alarm, and if you cant turn off the alarm, you cant do anything.Research from 2009 showed that Israeli soldiers with more active amygdalae before a traumatic exposure were far more likely to have PTSD after. Talma Hendler, director of the center, began wondering if there welches a way soldiers could turn down that activity, before seeing combat, to avoid a potentially debilitating long-term aftermath.Detecting abnormalities within the brain with a fMIR machine. Image Wikimedia CommonsThe answer was biofeedback.Keynan, Hendler, and their colleagues testedvolunteers using an fMRI machin e and asked them try to find ways to lower the activity in their amygdalae. A simple thermometer-like bar told them whether the activity was increasing or decreasing. We did not suggest strategies, says Keynan. We told people to find their own way. We found that it works well different people find different strategies. Perhaps there is an instruction that would better, but the part where you try different things is perhaps as important as finding things. The experimentation is very importantthats the theory.However effective, its not likely that fMIR machines will ever be rolled out to the barracks before a battle in the hopes of preventing PTSD. Theyre too big, too noisy, too expensive. Its like giving someone a medicine that costs a million dollars a pill, says Keynan.The EEG headcap with dry touch-electrode sensors. Image Tim Sheerman-Chase / FlickrSo the team turned to another brain imaging technique EEG. It was everything that fMIR wasnt cheap, quiet, mobile, and easy to use. T he only problem was it doesnt show whats going on inside the brain, but whats going on at the scalp.But maybe what was going on at the scalp might somehow reflect what was going on inside the skull. It was a long shot, but to find out,researchers needed to do both at the saatkorn time. That is, subjects would have to wear an EEG cap while they played the lower-the-thermometer/calm-the-amygdala game from inside an fMRI machine.But the two techniques dont get along. Both imaging techniques interfere with each other. EEG interrupts magnetic homogeneity, and fMRI puts noise into the electric signals, says Keynan.So they turned to the teams biomedical engineer, Ilana Podlipsky-Klovatc, who came up with a system to make it all work. In short, she tweaked the EEG system to work in the fMRI, and found a way to remove the fMIR noise, which is systematic, from the EEG.There was every chance there would be no recognizable pattern in the EEG to match with amygdalae activity as picked up by the fMRI. Imagine how anxious I was before I hit enter, says Keynan. Amazingly, a signature emerged. This is not a direct measurement of amygdalae activity, he says. We dont claim to have recognized a signal coming from the amygdalae. Its a fingerprint.But its a fingerprint that proved to work with biofeedback. People who were able to calm the amygdalae with the EEG were subsequently able to do the same in the fMRI.Keynan and his colleagues have been able to take the cheaper lighter biofeedback machinejust an EEG cap with a laptopto bases and train soldiers to lower their stress vulnerability. The game they play now is a bit more sophisticated. Instead of trying to lower a bar, they watch an animated scene of a hospital waiting room, with angry shouting people around the front desk. As a soldier lowers the activity in his amygdalae, the people at the desk begin to sit down. Changing the chaotic scene turns out to be far more motivating than the old thermometer bar.Keynan hopes to train 150 soldiers soon. Then, in a year or two, theyll interview the soldiers to see how effective the biofeedback was in reducing PTSD. And soldiers everywhere may someday be able to leave the traumas of the battlefield on the battlefield.Michael Abrams is an independent writer. For Further Discussion Different people find different strategies. Perhaps there is an instruction that would be better, but the part where you try different things is perhaps as important as finding things.Jackob Keynan, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center

6 Illegal Reasons to Fire Someone

6 Illegal Reasons to Fire Someone6 Illegal Reasons to Fire SomeoneAlmost all employment in the United States is at-will. (Montana is the only state that doesnt have at-will employment as a default. Unions or a contractual obligation for a particular position are the other exceptions.) That means you can fire someone for any reason or no reason as long as that reason isnt prohibited by law. So, technically, you can walk up to an employee and say, Ive decided to fire you. No reason, and its legal. Or, Your shirt has vertical stripes, and I prefer horizontal stripes, youre fired. But, that doesnt mean that every employment termination is legal. In fact, there are numerous reasons why you cannot fire an employee. The first group of illegal termination reasons is covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Race Is an Illegal Reason to Fire Someone You can, of course, fire someone of any race, just not for a reason because of their race. This is true for all races- you cant fire a wh ite person to make a place for a person of color any mora than you can fire a person of color because you prefer to hire white people. Along with race come ethnicity and national origin. In the US, you are not required to hire a person who needs company sponsorship for a visa. But, if the person is already authorized to work or is a US citizen, you cant discriminate on the basis of their national origin or ethnicity. Sex Is an Illegal Reason to Fire Someone Its illegal to fire someone for being a male or female. Federal law is clear that you cannot discriminate on this basis. A question that hasnt been wholly settled is discrimination against transgendered employees. The EEOC settled a lawsuit on behalf of a transgender individual, and the courts tend to be leaning this way. So, most likely youll find yourself in court if you fire someone for being transgender. Likewise, the courts have been clear that homosexuality is protected as well. Employers need to err on the side of kind ness and communicate that - no matter the circumstance of the firing - the termination was in no way related to gender identity, sexual identity, and so on. And a good rule of thumb dont terminate someone for their sex or their sexual identity. Period. Religion Is an Illegal Reason to Fire Someone Whether a person is an evangelical Christian, Muslim, or an Atheist, their religious beliefs (or the lack thereof) are protected. Exceptions exist. For example, if you are a temple- if your Jewish Rabbi converts to Christianity, you can fire him, but in your for-profit business, forget it. Religion is protected. And like disabilities, you may be required to make some accommodations as long as they dont create an undue hardship. If a Muslim employee doesnt want to handle alcohol, for example, and the only time the situation comes up is once a year at the company holiday party, you can reasonably accommodate the persons wishes. If, however, a Muslim employee doesnt want to handle alcohol and your business is a bar, it would probably be reasonable to fire him. Disability Is an Illegal Reason to Fire Someone The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits firing someone because of a disability- real or perceived. You cannot terminate someone for being disabled and you have to provide reasonable accommodation for an employee with a disability. Reasonable accommodations vary from business to business and job to job. Most likely it is a reasonable accommodation for a diabetic marketing employee to keep food at her desk and eat it when needed. At the same time, it is not a reasonable accommodation for a diabetic employee who works in a manufacturing clean room to keep food in her pocket. The law doesnt explicitly define what conditions are considered disabilities, but instead says anything that involves a major life function can qualify. Age Is an Illegal Reason to Fire Someone Age is unlike the others because you can (technically) fire someone for being too young, but not for being too old, as long as that old is over 40. After 40, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) kicks in. You cant fire someone for getting old. If you are even thinking about this, remember that someday, you too will be over 40. Youll appreciate the legal protection while you have the opportunity to maintain your professional relevance. Pregnancy Is an Illegal Reason to Fire Someone Pregnant women are protected under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. Just because a woman will need to take some time off isnt a sufficient reason to fire someone. If a woman has worked for you for 12 or more months, you have 50 or more employees, and shes worked at least 1250 hours in the past year, shes also protected by the Family Medical Leave Act, which means you need to give her up to 12 weeks of protected leave to deal with the pregnancy, birth, and bonding with the new baby. Remember, these laws protect you from firing people for these reasons but they dont protect empl oyees from employment termination for other reasons. The best practice is to terminate only after a failed performance improvement plan, for cause (such as stealing), or a layoff. Otherwise, approach any employee termination fairly and professionally and follow the law. DisclaimerPlease note that the information provided, while authoritative, is not guaranteed for accuracy and legality. The site is read by a world-wide audience and ?employment lawsand regulations vary from state to state and country to country. Please seek legal assistance, or assistance from State, Federal, or International governmental resources, to make certain your legal interpretation and decisions are correct for your location. This information is for guidance, ideas, and assistance.