Can a follow up letter be two pages?

I have a two page follow up letter from an informal interview. I have attached my resume with it and was wondering if its too long? This is for a complicated administrative position and I do not want to miss this opportunity.

Reply by Peter Fisher

It's rare for any interview follow-up letter to be longer than one page in my experience, but that may depend upon what you mean by an informal interview.

I presume that you mean the interview was conducted in an informal setting, a relaxed atmosphere, perhaps away from the office making it feel informal. Or maybe the interviewer said its just an informal interview?

Either way, if a decision depends on this interview then whatever it was called and wherever it was conducted it is serious and that means you must respond appropriately.

Normally, interview follow up letters take one of just two forms: 1. a simple handwritten note to thank the interviewer for taking the time to interview you, where you say how pleased you were and are looking forward to meeting them again; or 2. when you omitted some useful information in the interview and want to tell them about it. You can explain that you overlooked mentioning a particular time when you ____ and the result was ____.

In the second instance, you would type the letter and thank them for their time, but add that you feel you missed an important piece of information which you'd like to tell them about very briefly. See my section on thank you letters for more information.

The only other situation that may arise, would be where the informal interview was a pre-screening interview as a preliminary to the actual process of selection.

In cases like that, what may happen is that you are then asked to write in with your reasons why you are the ideal candidate and an excellent match for the position, and if this is the case I can understand why you may want to write a two page letter. If so, take a long look at what you have written and ask yourself if all of it is relevant or are you trying too hard to impress them?

In most cases I would suggest you apply the normal principles of writing a job application letter and keep it to one page only.

You can and should attach your resume, especially if they haven't already seen it.