Should I send an interview thank you through LinkedIn?
January 30, 2018 11:00 AM   Subscribe

I had an in-person interview with four people yesterday for the perfect job. It seemed to go well. Since I'm going through a staffing company, and I will be the staffing company's employee, the only contact info I have is for my recruiter. But I've found all 4 of the interviewers on LinkedIn. Is it appropriate to send them messages?

One of the people would be my manager and I'd be working with the other three, though not closely. It was mostly a behavioral interview and they seemed to like me.

If it makes any difference: It's a very large, established company with a relaxed, team-oriented culture. They were dressed in jeans and flannel shirts, I was in business casual. It's a business analyst job. Three of them were engineers and one worked in finance.

I cannot stress enough how much I want this job. I don't know when they will make a decision or how many other people they are interviewing. I emailed the recruiter after the interview yesterday but haven't heard back from him.
posted by AFABulous to Work & Money (16 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
You may want to check with your staffing company; they may have rules about contacting potential clients without their approval, it may be seen as trying to work directly with the 'employer' which may jeopardize the staffing company getting their 'cut'.
posted by AzraelBrown at 11:02 AM on January 30, 2018 [3 favorites]


Definitely wait til you get in contact with your recruiter. They'll not only be able to tell if you should contact them, but probably have contact information for them if you wish to and it's okay.

It wouldn't have occurred to me to send a LinkedIn note, but I think that's getting less weird as time goes by. However, if it were a normal panel interview, and I didn't have contact information for any of them, I'd send a handwritten note by the regular mail to their office, which I guess is kind of old school, but, shrug.
posted by General Malaise at 11:04 AM on January 30, 2018 [2 favorites]


^ Where "normal panel interview" means with no staffing agency involved.
posted by General Malaise at 11:05 AM on January 30, 2018


You may also be able to guess their email addresses by finding their typical format online (for example: first.last@whatever.butts). I've had good success with googling and guessing.
posted by emkelley at 11:25 AM on January 30, 2018


I probably wouldn't do it if I had been going through a staffing agency. Also, people don't check their LinkedIn accounts right away so the message might just end up setting there. Personally, if you think the recruiter has been helpful and supportive, then I'd talk to the recruiter about it -- say you thought the interview went great, you are very interested and excited about the opportunity, and you'd love to send your interviewers a note thanking them for their time if that's possible. The recruiter might be able to pass along their email addresses or forward a message for you. You know the situation best though.
posted by AppleTurnover at 11:27 AM on January 30, 2018 [2 favorites]


I wouldn't. Someone thanked me for an interview via Linked In once and I didn't see the message for weeks!
posted by JenThePro at 11:31 AM on January 30, 2018 [2 favorites]


You could send the interview thank you to the recruiter and ask them to pass along the message to your interview panel. I have done this before with some success. To me, it would be a bit weird to message them on LinkedIn at this point, particularly if you are using a recruiter.
posted by snowysoul at 11:40 AM on January 30, 2018 [11 favorites]


I wouldn't. If the company is choosing to hire through this staffing company, they're doing it partly to avoid multiple avenues of communication with job candidates. They have all the info they need from you -- at this point sending more messages will make you look needy which might work against you.
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 11:45 AM on January 30, 2018


yeah don't do that. They might not get the message, they might get it weeks from now, they may feel like you're wanting to connect with them there, it's overall not a plus. If they gave you business cards, feel free to email them your thanks directly. If they didn't, you can pass a note along through the recruiter but to be honest with you, I've never seen it make a difference to the hiring decision.
posted by fingersandtoes at 12:06 PM on January 30, 2018


When I've interviewed through a staffing company, I've sent my thank you letter (addressed to the interviewers) to my recruiter with "please pass along my thanks to name and name and name for meeting with me today!" [text below].
posted by phunniemee at 12:09 PM on January 30, 2018


From what I understand about recruiters, this is likely to make the recruiter mad, so I would not do it.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:10 PM on January 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


I would compose a thoughtful follow-up email and ask your recruiter to forward it to whoever the hiring manager is (likely the person on the panel who would be your boss).
posted by radioamy at 12:58 PM on January 30, 2018 [4 favorites]


I'd send a handwritten note by the regular mail to their office, which I guess is kind of old school, but, shrug.

My department (part of a Big Company) moved into a new office a year and a half ago and I'm not totally sure where the mail room is. I am not the only one with this problem. If the hiring company is anything like mine, your note might not get found until they've already made the decision.
posted by madcaptenor at 12:59 PM on January 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have done what radioarmy mentions, and it's worked out quite well. The recruiter passes along the email to the Hiring Team, and then passes back to me any feedback they receive.
posted by spinifex23 at 1:30 PM on January 30, 2018


Response by poster: Unfortunately, the recruiter has not returned my email or phone call.
posted by AFABulous at 2:56 PM on January 30, 2018


I would totally send them a LinkedIn message, with a request to connect even, and say something like:

"Hey, it was great talking to you the other day. I'm super-interested in the possibility of working with you guys on the [project/team/line of business]. [follow-up stuff about why you'd be good]. I'll be expecting to hear your decision/or next steps from [Recruiter] but regardless of the hiring decision I'd love to stay in touch."

Maybe I'm way off, since everyone else thinks this is such a terrible idea! But if I got such a message from someone who I'd interviewed I would feel neutral at worst, positive at best. (I also might not notice it for a week though, honestly.) I work on a jeansy, close-knit team that uses recruiters for hiring.
posted by mskyle at 3:04 PM on January 30, 2018


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