After interview thank you note advice:

Recently I called on some of my pals to help me navigate a question… What makes a thank you note from a candidate stand out after an interview. Check out what some of the best business professionals had to say below and let us know if you would add anything else!

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Don’t do it tomorrow

Why do it tomorrow when you can do it today?

Time management has been my biggest challenge over the last couple of months. I thought after giving up some of my volunteer roles I would have all this free time, but that hasn’t exactly happened. I don’t know how or why, but I’m going to spend some time the next few weeks figuring it out.

Part of it can be addressed with some clearer goals for myself. Today is day 33 of my 33 days of writing in a row… aka the last day! I didn’t know if I could carve out time every day for 33 days in a row because my time management has been all over the place, but somehow I made it work.

time management

So I’m going to keep setting goals, not just for my writing but for work. Completing projects sooner, chatting less, coming in earlier, not putting things off for tomorrow if I know I have a few minutes to work on it today.

I’m not going back into workaholic mode by any means, I still want to be done with work no later than 5:30. I think I can make that happen with defined micro goals.

So for now, the content from hrpockets will drop down to one or two (hopefully better written) pieces a week. For the rest of 2019 make yourself some goals and stop putting things off when you don’t have to.

Don’t underestimate boundaries

Boundaries at work/with work are good for you.

You can love your work and have boundaries. I’d argue that having boundaries can make it easier to love your work.

Boundaries at work can look like saying no to projects you know you don’t have the bandwidth to complete.

Boundaries can look like not staying late or coming in early or over the weekends.

Boundaries can look like telling co-workers or managers when they say something that makes you uncomfortable or offends you.

Boundaries can look like expecting people to value your work outcomes and respecting your knowledge.

It’s important to start setting your boundaries early on. It’s much easier to have boundaries from the beginning than to try to walk people back to your boundaries after you’ve let them get away with disrespecting them.

I used to have a job where I kept volunteering to stay late to get the job done for the team and before I knew it I was expected to stay late to get the job done. It snuck up on me. I agreed to take phone calls on the weekend and then I was always expected to take phone calls on the weekends and early in the am during the week. By the time I had enough and started letting people know I had enough and I couldn’t work like that anymore (years later) I was the bad guy.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t work hard, you should work however you want to-just have boundaries.

Who do you really support?

The most important career lesson I ever learned was to understand the business.

There seems to be a lot of back and forth about HR being business professionals/or not being business professionals. In my opinion the easiest way to win this discussion is to make sure you understand the business you support-not just the people portion, but the whole picture.

How does your company make money? What are the products/services your company provides? How do they provide it? Like really, how? What other areas do your HR policies or actions impact and how.

From where I sit, you can make better decisions about the HR support you provide when you understand the business. Looking beyond your schedule and how quickly (or slowly) you choose to respond or how much information you decide you want to share can move your department forward.

People (managers especially) choose to not value HR when you choose to ignore the bigger business picture and only do things the way you want to do things. When HR isn’t valued it’s hard to see them as business professionals.

In 2019 don’t just try to teach the business HR, let HR learn the business.

businesstime

Dig out the root

When I was in elementary school one of my chores was to pull weeds in the yard. I didn’t really like that chore much. Day after day I would pull up dandelions out of the yard only to find two or three times as many the next day. If you don’t get to them quick enough they spread their seeds all over the yard.

Finally I learned to use a spoon to dig up the root. The spoon helped me to make sure I got the whole problem so it would stop spreading. Had I thought that through from the beginning, I would’ve really cut down my chore time (and effort) but I’m one of those kids who has to learn things the hard way.

satisfied seal

When we have a problem at work, we have to dig out the root to solve it. The most common avoidance tactic we take in response to a problem is “I’m too busy” to x, y, or z.

But are you really? Because if you would take the time to stop what you’re doing and get to the root of the problem, you may free up some time on the back-end. Accepting “I’m too busy” as an excuse makes the problem build and spread.

It’s real simple. Take the time to find the root and dig it out. If you don’t the problem is going to eventually spread and then it may be out of your hands to solve altogether.

Send it back

You cannot fix a communication problem by ignoring it.

The first time I experienced communication problems at work was at my afternoon job in high school. I had a boss who would tell me to do something, I would go do it, and then she would freak out asking me why I did what I did.

She actually made me feel crazy.

I talked with my careers teacher who had arranged for me to get this position (for school credit) and she recommended that I take notes during the conversation and either read them back to my boss afterwards as in “I understand you want me to do x, y, z” or email that statement back to her.

It felt really weird to do that at first, but what happened next was a game changer. My boss would correct where I heard something different from what she was trying to say or approve of my interpretation. It pretty much eliminated those weird melt downs after I completed tasks.

I don’t know why people communicate differently or why we hear what we want to hear, but I do know there are plenty of opportunities we can work on our communication together and get better.

I’m glad I had that experience early on to send back my notes for confirmation because it helped me prepare for future communication barriers.

send it back.png

What is something you’ve done to build better communication and understanding with your team?

So you had a bad day

It’s no secret that I’m a supporter of having a smile file. I can’t take credit for the idea of a smile file, but I can share the idea with you.

We all have bad days, some probably more than others. A resource I use to redirect on those bad days is my “smile file.” I actually have two! A smile file on my computer and a box in my office.

The box in my office is full of handwritten thank you notes or cards from folks. Little reminders from people who took the time to let me know how my work impacted them. The one on my computer is mostly emails from people thanking me for some sort of contribution to a project or an answer to their question.

No matter what field you are in, you could use some appreciation for your work. Here are a few screen grabs of the kind of things I keep, but there are no rules to a smile file-other than whatever it is should make you smile! You want to file away things that will bring you back from a bad day, or motivate you when you aren’t feeling any motivation.

Every day cannot be perfect so do something to help you get back on track on hard days; start a smile file.

smile file 2

smile file 3

smile file 4