TY notes. First name okI had an interview on Wednesday. Afterwards, I sent thank you notes to both interviewers. I wasn't sure if it was ok to address the interviewers by their first names, so I went with the formal "Dear Ms. ______" salutation. Today, I had another interview there. This interviewer is in a higher position than the other two. He showed me around the company and I noticed that everyone was addressing him by his first name. The company seems like a very casual place. To illustrate exactly how casual, this person is the head of the department at a Fortune 500 company, and his assistant referred to him as "dude" when she came into his office to ask him a question. Judging by his clothes and demeanor he seems like the kind of a person who will make fun of you until the day you die if you call him "Mr". Now, after everything I've observed today in regards to this person and the company in general, am I still supposed to address him as Mr. Doe in the thank you note because that's how I addressed the previous 2 interviewers in the TY notes I sent to them, or is it ok to address him by his first name? Thoughts? Btw, this is not a conservative industry, not like law or finance. Did your interview go like this? You: Good Morning Mr. Jones, so nice to meet you (offering hand for shake) Him: Please, call me Bob (taking your hand)... If not, you haven' t been invited to call him by his first name yet, therefore it would be presumptuous to do so in the thank you letter. If/When you get the job, you can "dude"and "Bob" all you think you can get away with. Thanks. I have another question. At the end of the interview, this person who is the decision maker for this position introduced me to a potential co-worker who showed me some of the projects they were currently working on. We chatted for about 5-10 minutes. Mostly, the hiring manager just wanted me to see the work they were doing and let them know if that was something I was interested in and could learn relatively quickly. Here' s where it gets complicated (seems like it always does with me). The guy I spoke with for 10 minutes (the potential co-worker) has just recently started in that position and did not have a business card. He just wrote his name and extension on a piece of paper. It was only after I left that I realized that I didn' t have his e-mail address. I can' t guess it either because, while their formula seems to be firstinitiallastname@company.com, he was the only person I' ve talked to at that company whose name plate included the middle initial, so now I' m wondering if his e-mail includes his middle initial as well. Maybe they have two people with the same last name and first initial (he has a very common last name), so they use middle initials to differentiate. I sent the first 2 TY notes via e-mail, so it would be odd if I sent his TY note via snail mail. Since the co-worker didn' t technically interview me and the whole conversation was less than 10 minutes, and since I don' t know his e-mail address and he obviously doesn' t expect me to e-mail him because otherwise he would' ve written it down for me, would it be ok to send the TY note to the hiring manager (Mr. Dude) only and maybe mention in it that I also appreciate John Smith taking the time to show me some of his current projects? I' d go with send the TY note to the hiring manager (Mr. Dude) only and maybe mention in it that I also appreciate John Smith taking the time to show me some of his current projects. I would have started the thank-you notes with Dear First Name. Using "Mister" is way too formal for this circumstance and makes the writer seem immature and subordinate in the extreme. You want to be seen as a competent professional, a peer, not someone who' s still asking dad for the car keys. "Using "Mister" is way too formal for this circumstance and makes the writer seem immature and subordinate in the extreme. You want to be seen as a competent professional, a peer, not someone who's still asking dad for the car keys." You wouldn't be this person's peer. He would be your boss, you would be his subordinate. The fact that other employees call him by his first name is irrelevant under the circumstances. Until you are hired, you are a stranger to this person. You wouldn't like a stranger to come up to you on the street and address you by your first name. Using Mr/Ms is not subservient, it's the polite and professional way of addressing a person you don't know very well and who has not given you express permission to call him/her by their first name. Imagine if you went to the bank and the account manager there just started calling you Susie. This bank employee is not your subordinate, they are, presumably, a competent professional, and so, according to your logic, should be allowed to call you Susie, or "girl" or "honey", if they overheard someone else call you that. However, most people wouldn't be thrilled by such treatment. Besides, the poster has already addressed the first 2 interviewers, who hold lower positions than this interviewer, by their last names. Interviewers do share 'thank you' letters, which is why applicants are always told to make each letter different and personal. It's anyone's guess what conclusion this person would've drawn from the fact that while his subordinates were addressed as Mr/Ms, the applicant decided to call him, whose position is senior to theirs, by his first name. Nope, I held off on sending the note until Tess responded, so I just included the co-worker in the note. I hope this works out. The guy mentioned as I was walking out that there was "a whole bunch of stuff" he needed to go over with HR before the hire could be finalized. Plus, as he was interviewing me, his phone and cell phone rang non-stop and e-mails kept popping up on the screen behind him every minute. So I'm guessing this will probably be one of those cases when weeks go by before I hear something from them, even though he said that someone would let me know within a few days. I was only in his office for an hour, and even I could see that he was being overly optimistic about how long the whole thing would take. By the time the interview was over, he already had a bunch of people waiting to talk to him, and HR departments aren't exactly famous for expediency when it comes to dealing with the hiring issues. Who knows, maybe by the time they get around to finalizing the whole thing, if I am selected for the position at all, my reference who has just given birth and whose availability I was worried about (I had another post about that) will be available to take calls after all. Uh, I need to relax and stop thinking about every possible thing that could go wrong. There is only so much I can control. Wish me luck :) Were you asked to address him as "Mister"? How did he introduce himself? If he said something along the lines of "Hi, I'm Mr. Glockenspiel, but you can call me Chuck", then obviously, he wouldn't mind (and may even prefer) for you to use his first name for contact. If he introduced himself within the realm of "Hello, I'm Mr. Glockenspiel", then you had probably better address him as "Mister" in you note. As for me, when I have introduced myself to potential candidates, I have resorted to a major lame joke that, for sheer stupidity, puts most people at ease and also makes all candidates realize that I don't expect formality. "Hi, I'm Kelly Laird. Please don't call me Mrs. Laird, because that's my mother-in-law. Plllleeeease don't call me my mother-in-law." For all you know, the individual who refered to him as "dude" could have been told to not do that ever again. And, since it was Friday, my personal favorite day, because it is "casual day" which basically means that anything goes as long as work is done and cursing is not. (Or in the case of some attorneys, kept to a minimum) | |
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