Follow-up, presence and the end-of-term reflection

The follow-up: within 24 hours

The day after an interview — within 24 hours — send a short email thanking the interviewer for their time. It is not a courtesy on top of the interview; when the panel meets to discuss six candidates, the ones who did not write look uninterested beside the ones who did. Its job is two things and only two: thank, in sentence one; and restate fit in one line, with something from the interview that shows you were listening. It is marked with R-email in a five-line cut: sent within 24 hours (say when) · a specific subject line · thanks in sentence one · one line restating fit with something from the interview · a courteous close with a signature. It is not the place to ask when the decision is coming, to resend a corrected résumé, or to raise pay.

Worked example. Interview yesterday with Hanna Berglund, finance manager at Ridgeline Credit Union, for a junior analyst co-op posting; she mentioned that the team is moving its month-end reporting from spreadsheets to a dashboard.

Subject: Thank you — Junior Analyst interview, 16 October

Dear Ms. Berglund,

Thank you for your time yesterday and for the conversation about the junior analyst role.
What you described about moving month-end reporting into a dashboard is the work I most
want to do — the PivotTable reporting I built for our club treasury is a small version of
exactly that — and I would bring the same care to Ridgeline's numbers.

I look forward to hearing from you, and I am glad to send anything further that would help.

Kind regards,
Jonah Petrakis
AFM, University of Waterloo · jonah.petrakis@uwaterloo.ca · 519-555-0142

Seven lines; the fit line names the dashboard, which only someone in that room would know. Then move on to the next application — the outcome is not in your hands.

Presence — the five qualities

Smith's chapter on professionalism distils the research on personality and the employer surveys into five qualities of a successful professional: conscientious (do your best work in the time you have, follow through, finish rather than leave loose ends); courteous (civil to everyone, including the people who cannot help your career); tactful (say the hard thing in a way the other person can hear — Module 3's scripts); ethical (the whole of Modules 2–3); presentable (grooming, attire and bearing that match the room). Workplace etiquette is those five made visible: on time, phone away in meetings, names remembered and spelled right, the reply sent, the door held. On a co-op term the qualities are what the evaluation form is really measuring, whatever its headings say.

The end-of-term reflection

The last piece of writing in AFM 111 is a reflection on the term, and it is where the course's threads meet. It is marked with R-reflect (a specific event · an honest evaluation with evidence · one transferable lesson · one dated next step) applied to your metacognition, plus three things the course adds: a value that was tested, named, with how you responded; your weakest PSP stage, with evidence from a graded piece; and one SMART goal for co-op meeting R-smart's S, M and T. The failure mode is the one Module 1 warned about — a summary of the course ("we learned the five stages and the memo") where the marker wants a judgment about yourself, with evidence.

Model, in outline. What changed in my metacognition: in September I planned by deadline; by the Kestrel memo I was planning by rubric line — evidence: my stage-3 draft was self-graded against R-psp-3 before Meera saw it, which my L6 practice case was not. A value tested: honesty, in week 9, when a group member offered a paragraph from a previous year's memo; I said no and we wrote it fresh — Policy 71's unauthorized resubmission, and the courage line in the six values. Weakest stage, with evidence: stage 2 — the group case feedback said "six issues, unranked, two are symptoms", and my L5 practice case lost the same line. Lesson: problem, cause and symptom are three sentences, not one. SMART goal for co-op: by the end of week 4 of my Winter work term I will write my first three status updates with issues ranked by impact and the cause stated separately from the symptom, measured by my supervisor's comments on each, because ranking issues is the skill the case feedback named; checkpoints — update 1 reviewed with my supervisor in week 2, update 2 in week 3.

The model is a judgment: it names a stage, a value and a habit, with a graded piece as evidence for each.

Write the follow-up, then the reflection cold

The follow-up first — five lines against the cut of R-email. Then the reflection: the checkpoint after it is the course's last.