a real-life example of salvaging an interview mistake with a thank-you note afterwards
A reader writes:
After your recent post about interview thank-you notes, I wanted to share a thank-you note / interview follow-up success story!
When I interviewed for my current job, I made an embarrassing mistake in one of my answers to a technical question. I call it embarrassing because the topic was absolutely within my area of expertise, and my answer was so incorrect that it probably made the interviewers wonder if I had lied on my resume (I described a scenario that was physically impossible, and if I truly did the things I said I did on my resume, I would have known it was physically impossible). In my defense, it was a remote interview across different time zones, and it was approaching bedtime in my time zone, which the interviewers acknowledged apologetically. But nevertheless, my original answer probably would have been disqualifying if I hadn’t followed up.
I realized the mistake as soon as I woke up the next morning, and I was pretty sure that all hope was lost, but I was encouraged by follow-up success stories I had seen on your website in the past. So the morning after my interview, before I even had my coffee, I typed up the email copied below. Of course, this wasn’t just about thanking the interviewers for their consideration — it was also about correcting / expanding on my answer to an interview question. But the gratitude was genuine!
I know I’m not the only one who has woken up the day after an interview and realized they made a massive mistake on a question that should have been a slam-dunk for them. So for anyone who may be in the same boat, I just wanted to share my anecdote in case it provides any encouragement, as others have for me!
Here’s the note with details changed for anonymity. (Also, during my interview they did strongly emphasize the team culture about owning up to mistakes and learning from them (which I’ve found to be true now that I work here), so I figured I had nothing to lose by acknowledging it, and if anything maybe it demonstrated that I’d fit in well with the team culture.)
Thank you for taking the time to meet with me yesterday! It was great to get to know you both a little better, and I hope to have the opportunity to get to know the rest of your team as well.
After our conversation, it occurred to me that the energy graph I sketched for your question about llama routes would have made sense from point B to A, but not from point A to B, as it doesn’t make sense for the llama energy to gradually increase along a route. In the moment, I was inadvertently visualizing the energy graph from B to A, which would have been similar to one of my recent projects. From A to B, the llama energy would have to be quickly charged up to its highest level at point A, and then it would gradually decrease at a constant rate over the mountain summit until point B. This is essentially a mirror image of the graph that I sketched during our call yesterday. This error seemed obvious to me after the fact, and I wanted to own up to it as soon as I realized.
For reference purposes, see below for the contact information for two of my former supervisors. Please let me know if you need any additional information from me moving forward.
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