lets set the record straight with these thank yous Forum

[Anonymous User]

My T20 school's career services says they are required post-callback. It seems like the general consensus on here is not to send them. I would hate to not send thank yous and have that looked down upon. I am mainly interviewing in NY. Could you please post if you've gotten offers in a major market without having sent any thank yous?

[Anonymous User]

2 DC offers, 0 thank you notes

[cron1834]

I have, and so has everyone I know.

[Anonymous User]

Three NYC offers, no letters

[star fox]

Not necessary and I doubt they give any boost either.

[Anonymous User]

Received multiple offers in LA without sending any

[Anonymous User]

6 offers. 0 thank you notes. none after CB. none after screeners either. please dont send thank you notes.

[Anonymous User]

8 DC offers. 0 thank you notes.

[JusticeJackson]

.

[nunumaster]

No. In NYC no ones gives a fuck.

[PeanutsNJam]

It's probably true that in NYC nobody gives a shit, but you can't definitively say "well I got 3 offers and didn't send thank yous so that's that"! I mean come on people.

People who can get biglaw offers without thank-you notes even if thank-you notes happen to matter somewhat:

- Top students at T14, or grades/pedigree substantially above the average offeree of said firm
- Excellent interviews
- Strong ties to the firm or local market
- Excellent work experience and resume
- Has judicial clerkship lined up (similar to top student)
- Lucky

Thank-you notes may make a positive impact even if the review is submitted the moment you walk out of the office if your interviewer is on the hiring committee and attends the meetings where they decide who to give offers to.

It's not black and white.

Personally, I didn't send thank-you notes, although I only applied to NYC. If I applied to a smaller, highly selective firm (for my credentials), I would. I've said in another thread that at a panel, an interviewer from Locke Lord (tip for anybody applying there) explicitly said that she expects thank-you notes. Maybe she's an oddity. I hope she is. You can feel confident in not sending thank-you notes if your grades, interview, or whatever else make you a strong applicant. If you're below the firm's grade cutoff and manage to swing a screener, I'm not going to tell you a thank-you note is 100% a bad idea, so long as it's well written and proofread.

My answer? It depends. It depends on the firm and its location, it depends on the interviewer, it depends on how the interview went, and it depends on the strength of your application.

[Dr. Nefario]

It's social suicide.

[zhenders]

How is it possible applying for jobs can make so many people so neurotic?

If you write a neurotic thank you note, that's uncool. Be normal.

If you write a normal thank you note, depending on the person, people will have a reaction on the spectrum of "delete -- don't care" to "nice of the kid to take the time to write that."

No one is reading a NORMAL thank you letter and thinking, "desperate loser -- DING! dodged that bullet."

I mean seriously. Put yourself in their shoes. Assume that the people you interviewed with aren't insane. How do non-insane people react to thank you letters?

[Anonymous User]

I went almost 100% converting callbacks to offers at firms ranging from V1 to V10 to V50 to not ranked in both NYC and in a southern market. Never sent a single thank you note and I don't go to a T-14, have exceptional grades/pedigree, or a strong resume/work experience. Thank you notes are just entirely worthless in every situation.

[FSK]

Fucking law students.

[BigZuck]

Fucking law students.

Sure. But how do you feel about thank you notes?

You're squandering a perfectly good opportunity to take part in a very important (and novel!) TLS debate here.

[lavarman84]

Might as well do it. As long as you proofread it, it won't hurt you. A bunch of older lawyers care. Won't make or break your chances. But you might as well do it if it can help at all.

[GeneralLawyer]

On one hand, it's perhaps the most basic of manners. On the other hand, we are becoming extremely risk averse lawyers who can't afford to risk anything for something as foolish as basic human behavior. FWIW I didn't send any.

[texanslimjim]

The hiring process is one where two parties are seeking a mutually beneficial arrangement. Law firms are not doing you a favor by interviewing you. They stand to benefit, too. I don't see why anyone would pretend the situation is analogous to receiving a gift.

And the idea that it can only help is ridiculous. There are so many little choices you have to make when you do thank-you notes. You have no idea what your interviewers consider the Platonic thank-you letter. You're going to type it when they expected it to be handwritten or vice versa. You're going to email it when they think it only shows thought if you mail it in physically, or you're going to mail it in physically when they think that's a colossal waste of time and paper. You're going to write too much or too little. You're going to insult some of your interviewers by not sending them personalized letters, or you're going to annoy them by sending them useless letters when they aren't the hiring partner. You're going to sign it with your personalized, barely-legible signature and the partner will think you have an illegible scrawl, or you're going to sign it neatly and legibly and they're going to think you're a robot.

The possible benefit from getting everything right isn't worth the risk.

[Anonymous User]

Partner at V5 in NY told me, in no uncertain terms, to never send post CB thank you notes and that it can only hurt. Showed me a folder on his computer where he stores all the thank you notes with spelling or grammar mistakes that he's gotten over the years.

Heard similar sentiment from lots of senior associates too......

[dixiecupdrinking]

Keep them short and sweet and they're probably fine.

I never sent any. I didn't get offers everywhere I interviewed but I got ... several? I doubt a thank you would have converted any others.

Personally, as a quite junior person, I think even a well written thank you (and many are not) is neutral to slightly negative and a little weird. You don't need to thank me, it's part of my job to consider hiring you. It's not a favor. That said, I'd never hold it against someone unless truly weird. (Even a typo ... not great but I would withhold judgment because shit happens.)

[sweets91]

it's not a make or break thing, but if you're going to send one, make sure it's error free.

I think that sums everything up, no?

FWIW, I've received offers from firms that I've sent thank you emails to and offers from firms where I didn't. I've also received rejections from firms where I've sent thank you emails and rejections from firms where I didn't.

So again, it has minimal impact unless you fuck up in the letter

[Winter is Coming]

I sent some of these at the time. In retrospect they can only be a bad thing. Dumb typos, its not worth it. In NYC at least don't send.

[Winter is Coming]

It's probably true that in NYC nobody gives a shit, but you can't definitively say "well I got 3 offers and didn't send thank yous so that's that"! I mean come on people.

People who can get biglaw offers without thank-you notes even if thank-you notes happen to matter somewhat:

- Top students at T14, or grades/pedigree substantially above the average offeree of said firm
- Excellent interviews
- Strong ties to the firm or local market
- Excellent work experience and resume
- Has judicial clerkship lined up (similar to top student)
- Lucky

Thank-you notes may make a positive impact even if the review is submitted the moment you walk out of the office if your interviewer is on the hiring committee and attends the meetings where they decide who to give offers to.

It's not black and white.

Personally, I didn't send thank-you notes, although I only applied to NYC. If I applied to a smaller, highly selective firm (for my credentials), I would. I've said in another thread that at a panel, an interviewer from Locke Lord (tip for anybody applying there) explicitly said that she expects thank-you notes. Maybe she's an oddity. I hope she is. You can feel confident in not sending thank-you notes if your grades, interview, or whatever else make you a strong applicant. If you're below the firm's grade cutoff and manage to swing a screener, I'm not going to tell you a thank-you note is 100% a bad idea, so long as it's well written and proofread.

My answer? It depends. It depends on the firm and its location, it depends on the interviewer, it depends on how the interview went, and it depends on the strength of your application.

A person told you in an interview that they expected a thank you note? That's actually insane.

[Bluem_11]

It's case by case. I think in general most lawyers don't care from ones I talk to. I tell applicants to not send me one.

However here is my anecdote. When I was doing OCI on a callback the hiring partner was talking to me about hI ring criteria. He mentioned how things are close calls between candidates and how one girl had wrote such a thoughtful and detailed thank you note to each attorney it gave her a mild edge in the decision process. I at the time and still do think that was bull shit decision making, but finding perfect consensus in any part of life isn't easy. I wrote thank you notes on that CB.