[Allergic2CPA]

Alright folks. Here’s a cautionary tale of a rookie mistake for your learning experience. After the first and only round of interviews, I sent a thank you email. I made a spacing error twice. The first one was the most egregious as it cut off a line way too prematurely. The second error was not spacing after a period.

These may seem like trivial errors but searching for a job is a crapshoot as it is and hiring managers can at times be rather mercurial so this doesn’t help at all. Not to mention if you’re in a tight race with another candidate this might just break you.

The cause of these errors are two fold. I was sending from a phone and had previously saved the email as a draft that required formatting. The second was impatience as I was trying to get it out during my lunch hour rather than waiting until I got home this evening to send from a desktop computer.

At this point, not sure what the best course of action is since I interviewed on Monday and they would supposedly decide by Friday.

Another issue is that I read your suppose to send a separate thank you email if you happened to have been interviewed by separate people rather than one email to all, which I did. I’m thinking of maybe sending a very short but personalized sentence or two to each of the interviewers but not sure yet. If I do send them, they’ll definitely be tonight or not at all.

FAR 46*, 77
AUD 70, 79
BEC 67, 82
REG 75

Texas License July 2013

Used Yaeger lectures based on Wiley textbooks

*Studied less than two weeks, forgot I had purchased NTS.

[shawn in VA]

yes thanks for sharing this as it is DEFINITELY a learning experience for all. I was in a similar situation 10 years ago (first job out of school). I misspelled the partner's last name in my thank you letter. I later realized it and sent an apology for misspelling his name. I still got the job though.

I cannot say if your spacing errors will cause you to not get the job. It is just to hard to gauge.

[cpApex Predator]

I committed a similar mistake. I was applying for a job and had my resume saved to my desktop with a date for the file name. I forgot that I had attached to it a cover letter going to another firm and uploaded it to the website. I caught the error and uploaded a correct one, but was unsure if the company could see my initial upload. Now I name all of my resumes with cover letters with the name of the company I am applying to.

[Anonymous]

As a gainfully employed accountant, let me just say to everyone that Thank You letters are a passe thing. They're not done anymore – by hardly anyone. I have a good job and
I almost think I could have even lost it if I'd emailed them afterwards. Yes, many hiring managers give their business cards when you go for an interview.
So do some of the other folks you might interview with. Throw the cards away as soon as you leave the interview. If they want you, they'll have H.R. contact you.

Thank you letters are sent if you get a gift from someone. Thank you letters are sent if somebody does something nice for you. I've read at least one article
on MSN or Yahoo or maybe it was even the Huffington Post where the title was “Job Thank You Letters Are Over”.

OP – your punctuation errors/line spacing errors are acceptable. Errare humanum est – to err is human. But a word to the wise, make that your last thank you letter. I hope you got
the job though!

[Ana]

@crazyleon I'd have to respectfully disagree. I'm a young Acting Controller that also hires for my company including hiring the CFO. They sent thank you letters and I was waiting for them. At the time the Controller we had didn't get a thank you letter from one of the candidates and was upset. I think he may have misspelled her email bc I got one and she didn't. I'd advise everyone to continue with this tradition.

Just remembered that my husband didn't get hired at the audit firm I did and the Audit Manager later told me it was bc I sent my thank you letter the next day and he didn't send it for almost a week.

[Anonymous]

It never fails….for every single thing that you could possibly hope to post on here, there is someone else with a complete 180 opinion of what yours is. And, they have a story to go along with it.

Okay….um….I'll re-phrase my original post. “If the spirit moves you, send a thank you letter. But don't feel like you have to, because most people don't do it anymore, and that is a fact.”

[Ana]

@crazy I'm not one of those ppl that loves to disagree especially on a forum but I'd hate for someone to miss out on a job opportunity.

[Superdude3000]

I always sent thank you letters after recruiting events and almost always got responses. It also lead to lunch offers from a mid sized public firm. They turned out to be my informal interviews because I got an offer shortly after. My university still recommends them and after my experience I'd also recommend it as well, with respect to opposing views

[Lentilcounter]

Based on my experiences, I would also encourage interviewees to send thank you emails after an interview. If you got the interview, then you probably met the minimum job requirements along with a bunch of other candidates. When you interview for jobs in our industry, interviewers are really looking for personality and fit within the organization. A thank you email is a little extra something that sets your apart. Not everyone does it and not everyone writes one the same. If you think of a thank you email as less of a “brown-nosing” tool and acknowledge it for what it really is then I don't know why anyone wouldn't send one. A person just took 30 minutes or an hour out of their schedule to consider you for a job. They didn't have to interview you but they did it. Nothing wrong with saying thanks.

BEC = 72 (6/08/16)
FAR = ?
REG = ?
AUD = ?

[Anonymous]

Okay, fine, I take it all back. LOL I guess it's more popular in CPA Land to send thank you letters and kiss-a** emails if they want to get that almighty job offer! Woohoo!!

I guess I'm not a geeky enough accountant. But that's ok. Phoniness and a**-kissing are no part of my being. I'd actually prefer not to
get a job where they tacitly expected me to thank them for nothing at all, and/or if the expectation of me for the job was that of a brown-noser. I gave my time to go interview, and my time was free. They were paid for their time to interview me. Although, I always thanked the job interviewer(s) at the conclusion of the interview. That's enough.

But, I know – especially in public – if you want to move up the ladder, you have to be chummy with your superiors. Which is why I never went in that direction. I used to see this
all the time when the KPMG folks came in annually for the almighty annual audit. Lord….I won't comment further on that.

Someday I will be in a hiring role, I am sure of it. Probably within the next year or two. I'm gonna have a ball. Anyone who emails me or sends a thank you note will not get hired.

[MaLoTu]

Being in a public accounting firm I can say that, at least at smaller firms, the decision of whether to proceed with a candidate is made almost immediately. We debrief as soon as interviews are done. It is not likely an interviewer would see the email before decisions were made.
Additionally, some people are very put off by thank you emails. I think the main problem is they are generic and hard to respond to. I don’t think that a thank you letter should be a part of deciding whether to hire someone or not. And as stated above, it more often than not has very little, if any, bearing in the ultimate decision.

[kdcpa]

I have been attending interviews and sent thank you letters to the interviewers. I am yet to receive a job offer. But I feel that it is good to send a thank you email to someone who has taken time from their own schedule to talk to you though doing so might not have any impact on hiring decision.

[Missy]

The vast majority of applicants still send thank you emails. They are the furthest thing from passe.

Licensed Massachusetts Non Reporting CPA since 2012
Finance/Admin/HR Manager

[Pete]

Another thing to consider is KISS-keep it simple stupid. The shorter you keep the thank-you notes, the less likely you are to make mistakes. Also, they are usually too busy to actually read the letters line-for-line; they usually skim them (I would think). Write something too long and you'll put them to sleep.

B=84 This exam was such a b**** that I thought I failed-don't know how these things work
A=76 Slacker I am, I'll happily take it
R=81 I LOVE taxes
F=80 I don't wanna get banned for an expletive I'm thinking with "yea" proceeding it

[Hmmmmm]

“I guess I'm not a geeky enough accountant. But that's ok. Phoniness and a**-kissing are no part of my being. I'd actually prefer not to
get a job where they tacitly expected me to thank them for nothing at all, and/or if the expectation of me for the job was that of a brown-noser.”

Wow. It's not about geeky or ass kissing or brown nosing. When I send it out, I genuinely thank people for their time. And why not? It costs you nothing to send a simple thank you. BUT it may be the push to get a response. Every job I have interviewed for, I sent a short thank you e-mail within 24 hours. When I sent one after my Big4 interview, the partner who interviewed me called me directly within 2 minutes.

Just do it.

Anyone can prepare a tax return, audit, whatever … relationships are important and you should start with the people you would potentially be working with. I don't think it's passe, I think it's professional courtesy – same when I thank clients for their time.

To the original OP, if you get overlooked b/c of spacing/human error, you probably don't want to work for a company that anal anyway, but be sure to proof read. You can always send it to a secondary e-mail just to see format before you send to the person.

[Ana]

@hmmm I wouldn't dignify Leon's obnoxious comment with a response. Sending a thank you isn't ass kissing or brown nosing but it is indicative of his character if that's how he perceives it. I feel sorry for anyone that will interview with him IF that time comes.

[Author]

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