Interview Etiquette: How To Follow Up After Your Insurance & Superannuation Interview

There’s no denying the job interview takes centre stage in your hunt for a new insurance or superannuation position. While the impression you make is paramount in ensuring you succeed in landing the job, there is one more key thing you can do to boost your chances after your interview – craft the right thank you note.

Why It’s Important To Send A Thank You Note

Sending a thank you note offers you multiple benefits. It shows you’re proactive and keen on the position; two very attractive qualities in a potential employee. But it also gives you another shot at staying at the top of the recruiter’s mind, especially if your note is highly personalised (for example, highlighting something interesting you learned during the interview).

While the hiring manager is bound to appreciate you taking the time to thank them, it may also sway their eventual decision (a Talent Inc. survey reports that 68% of hiring managers said receiving a thank-you note impacted their decision-making).

Essential Thank-You Note Prep

Reflection

As you come down off the adrenalin high of the interview, it’s likely you’ll want to relax. But before you switch to wind down mode, take some time to reflect on what occurred during your interview.

While it’s still fresh in your mind, write down a few salient points, such as new things you learned about the role or company. You might like to also note down any further questions you have that you didn’t have the chance to ask.

Provide Feedback

If you’re working with a professional recruitment consultant (or the employer is using an agency), it may be useful to connect back with them to share your thoughts about the interview. It could be about an area you didn’t feel you covered well enough, a skill you forgot to mention, or simply how excited you are about the role. You can use this as an additional opportunity to get that feedback to your potential employee, as the recruiter will discuss each candidate interview with their client.

What To Cover In Your Thank-You Note

1. Who To Send It To

Send your thank you note to the person that conducted your interview. It might be a hiring manager, HR head or company director. If you had a panel interview, send it to the most senior person in the group (often the person who had primary control over the interview). In the note, ask them to pass your thanks on to the other people present too.

2. How To Send It

The best method is email for its immediacy. If the company seems very traditional, a typed or handwritten letter is an option, but the lag time in delivery is not ideal.

3. When To Send It

Aim to send your thank you email within 24 hours of the interview. This ensures you remain fresh in their minds, especially when they’re likely seeing a sea of other insurance candidates. 

4. What To Say

Begin by thanking the interviewers for the opportunity to interview for the position. Reiterate your interest, highlighting how your skills are the right match for one or two key role requirements.

Try to personalise as much as possible by including something specific from the interview. It might be a new thing you learned about their organisation or the position itself, something you noticed about the company culture that aligns with your values, or a particular part of a project you’re excited to work on. This clearly demonstrates your thank-you email is no cut-and-paste job, but a well-considered and genuine response.

In your email subject line, include the job title along with the words ‘thank you’. This boosts the chances of it being opened.

When signing off, add an email signature that includes all your important contact information, as well as any professional links you have (LinkedIn, a professional website etc.).

Once completed, leave the email for an hour or two and then come back to re-read and refine if necessary. Before hitting send, ensure you carefully proofread to ensure it’s error-free (especially the interviewer’s name and job title). It can’t hurt to get another set of eyes to do a once over too, in fact, it’s encouraged!

 

An Email Thank-You Example

Here is an example thank you note for a life insurance relationship manager position:

 

Email Subject

Thank you for seeing me – Life Insurance Relationship Manager position

 

Dear Jarrod,

It was a pleasure to interview today for your Life Insurance Relationship Manager position at InsuringYou. Thank you for taking the time to learn about my work history and future goals, which I believe align very well with you and your team.

Hearing about your new candidate experience project, especially your plans to incorporate interactive technologies, sparked the innovator in me. Upon leaving the interview, I spent some time ruminating on the topic and came up with a few fresh ideas for the project.

I’m confident my background in customer acquisition and experience in spotting key cross-selling opportunities will enhance the great work you’re already doing, and I hope you give me the chance to demonstrate this.

Please let me know if you need any additional information about my skillset or prior experience to help you make your decision.

Thank you again, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards

Joanna Smith

Email:              jsmith@workinghard.com.au
Ph:                   0400 123 456
Website:          www.workinghard.com.au
LinkedIn:          https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsmith345

 

Stuck On What To Say? We Can Help

We hope this framework helps you craft your post-interview thank you email. But if you’re stuck for inspiration, please get in touch with one of our insurance and superannuation recruitment professionals.