Follow up after an interview with a short thank you video

The thank you email after an interview is a habit most of us keep without asking whether it does anything. It is polite, takes four minutes and gets filed. A short video does the same job and occasionally does more, because it reminds the interviewer of the person rather than the name.

It also carries more risk. A video that misjudges the tone is harder to forget than an email that does. The decision comes down to when a video beats the email, and what to put in it.

When a video beats a thank you email

A video wins when the interview felt like a conversation. If you and the interviewer got onto something tangential or ran over time, a video continues that tone. An email resets it to formal.

It also wins when you are one of several similar candidates. Interviewers can lose track of who was who, and thirty seconds of yours, the same afternoon, is a cheap way to stay distinct.

Record one when you left something unsaid. You fumbled a question, or remembered the better example on the train home. A video lets you give the answer in the same register you gave the others.

And record one when the interviewer brought up video. They did a video screen with you, asked how you feel on camera, or made clear that presenting is part of the job. For them the video doubles as a work sample.

When an email is the safer choice

Skip the video after a formal panel. Five people with a scoring sheet are not looking for warmth, and a video to one of them can look like you are hunting for the soft target.

Stick to email when the process runs through a recruiter and you never got a direct address. Sending a video to the recruiter to forward is fine, but guessing the interviewer's address will annoy everyone.

Do the same when the interviewer was short on time or visibly tired. They told you something about their day, so respect it with two lines of text.

If you are not sure, send the email. An email that says less beats a video that says too much.

What to say

The video has three parts, runs under forty-five seconds and is addressed to one person by name.

Thank them, in one sentence, for the specific time. "Thanks for the hour this morning" is better than "thank you for the opportunity."

Name one moment. Something they said, or a detail about the team that stuck. This is the part that proves you were present, and it is the part the email version usually lacks.

Add one thing, if you have one. The example you wish you had given, or the short version of the answer you fumbled. Say it briefly and skip the preamble about how you have been thinking about it since.

Then stop. Leave out the question about timelines and the restatement of why you want the job. The interviewer already has both.

A 40-second thank you video script

Hi Farah, it's Daniel. Thanks for the hour this morning, and for being straight with me about how much of the role is still being worked out.

The thing I kept turning over on the way back was your point that the team has never had someone whose only job was the onboarding flow. I had been treating that as a gap, and after talking to you I think it is the interesting part.

One thing I should have said when you asked about measuring success. At my last job we counted how many new users came back on day three rather than how many signed up, and I would start there.

Thanks again, Farah. I enjoyed it.

Daniel asks for nothing and does not summarise his qualifications. The only reference to the job comes through something Farah said.

What to avoid

• Sending it late. The same afternoon is right, the next morning is acceptable, and after that an email or nothing.
• Re-pitching. If the video contains the phrase "as I mentioned in the interview," cut it.
• Going over forty-five seconds. That is the ceiling for a thank you.
• Recording in the car. The interviewer sees the headrest and hears the engine. Wait until you are somewhere still.
• Reading. A thank you that is visibly scripted is worse than an email.
• Sending the same video to the whole panel. Pick the person who led it.
• Attaching a file. A link opens in a tap on a phone, which is where they may well see it.
• Following the video with an email saying you sent a video. Send the link once and leave it.

How to send it

Send a short email, three lines, with the link on its own line and a subject that names the interview.

Subject: Thanks for this morning

Hi Farah,

Thank you for the time today. I recorded a short note rather than writing one, under a minute. [link]

Daniel

That is the whole email.

If you record it on hi.video, Farah can open the link on her phone or laptop and see her name, your note, the video and a button you chose. For a thank you I would set the button to your email address and nothing more ambitious.

She does not need an account or an app. The link is unlisted, so only people who have the link can see it. You get a view notification when it is opened, which is useful mostly for your own peace of mind, and you should not act on it. A view does not prove who watched.

hi.video has no upload step and no AI avatar, and the "Recorded in hi.video" label says only that the video was made with our recorder. It does not prove who is on camera, and the trust page explains what it does and does not mean.

Recording it the same day

You have one advantage, which is that you are already dressed for an interview. Find a window, put the laptop at eye level, and record your first hi in the browser.

Retake it until the first sentence sounds like you. Trim the dead air at the start if there is any.

The free plan on hi.video covers five published videos a month at up to a minute each, which fits a normal interview cycle. If you are interviewing more heavily than that, the Pro limits are on the pricing page.

The same approach works after a meeting that was not an interview. Networking follow-up video after an event covers that case, and send a video to a hiring manager covers the message before the interview rather than after. For the email itself, what to write in the note with your video has more examples.

Then close the laptop. The next move is theirs.