4 Practical Things You Can Do After the Interview
By: Jeff Northrup
Tags: Work, Programming, Startup, Interview, Job Interview

Back-Channeling

You need to create a buzz about your interview. Back-channeling is about all the rest of the people and using them to create energy around you as a candidate for this job. It’s the process of building tactical connections with targeted people who interface, or may potentially interface, with your interviewer(s). For example, was there someone who referred you for this interview? Was there someone who pulled some strings? Who else do you know at this client? All of these people make up the base of your back-channeling.

Much like a lot of these tips, how you execute back-channeling is really dependant on your personality type. So don’t get caught up in exactly how to do this — do it your way.

An example of back-channeling. My daughter recently had an interview with a local company for an internship. The connection came from a person with whom my daughter formerly worked named Katie. My daughter was referred by Katie and ended up with an interview.

After the interview process wrapped up, my daughter asked me what she should do next. I told her to not forget to reach out to Katie and thank her. This small step was a potentially important bit of back-channeling.

Consider this from Katie’s perspective. Katie was just helping someone out. She passed a contact of a former co-worker (my daughter) to a professional contact and then probably forgot about it. Not surprising, right? The person giving the referral is rarely as invested as the referred candidate. So let’s assume that Katie completely forgot about the referral. In fact, she may not have known that my daughter got an interview.

And then she gets an email (or phone call) thanking her for the connection. In the email Katie hears “Thank you!” and all about the interview and about how impressive the people were, etc. Katie is suddenly reinvested. She may even be somewhat surprised and excited. And regardless of whether or not Katie proactively, then, reaches out to the client to talk about the referral (which would be awesome), she will definitely be ready if they reach out to her.

As it turns out, my daughter got the internship, and, not surprisingly, the back-channeling through Katie was a factor.

Another example of back-channeling is scouring LinkedIn to see who is a first connection with the person(s) who interviewed you. People — those you know well and those who you are only loosely connected to — need to know that you just had an interview.

Why? Because they will most likely help. They may know the person with whom you interviewed. Or they may work in a similar department. You never know. But if you’re good for the job then you should want others to know about your interview. (Disclaimer: there are times that you can’t be as aggressive in your back-channeling because you’re keeping things on the down-low. In these circumstances you simply have to use your best judgment.)

Every back-channel is noise. Good noise. Chatter. Energy. You’re creating buzz by back-channeling. If you’re confident in your skills, then you want energy around your interview. So created it with back-channeling.

So be intentional after your interview. Follow up, do your best to control the interactions, and maximize your connections.

One last thing: Using good post-interview tactics today can really help in the future. Being a professional is a marathon, not a sprint. And when we aren’t looking for a new job, we often get lost in our current one. We often forget or neglect the valuable relationships in our sphere. Now is a chance to renew old connections while making new ones — maximize the opportunity.