Good Karma in a Recession

I recently finished a one-year contract and am looking for my next gig. (Actually, I just picked up a short one, but I’m still looking for the thing after that or, if I find the right one, a full-time job.) I saw a job posting for a writing position, on one of the many job boards. The hiring company was Impinj. I submitted my resume. I expected it to fall into the black hole of Impinj’s HR, as seems to happen with most of the online postings I respond to. A few send me an automated response–usually saying something like “Thank you. Due to the overwhelming number of submissions, we may not be able to respond to you personally. But your resume will be reviewed….”

A week or so after I applied for the job, I got the following nice email:

To: Neicole M. Crepeau
Subject: Thank you for your interest in Impinj

Dear Neicole,
Thank you for your interest in Impinj and for taking the time to apply for our Sr. Technical Writer position.
As you might imagine, the candidate pool is very competitive, and we’ve decided to pursue other candidates at this time.
I know how tough the job market is right now, and truly wish you the very best in your search.
Best Wishes,
[name]
Sr. Director of Human Resources
Impinj, Inc.

I’ve taken out the actual name of the person, to prevent spamming or unwanted contacts, but the email was sent from her directly. I was vey impressed and immediately replied thanking her for the kind note. At least it was a clear resolution: a considerate decline and more of a response than most places ever gave.

In fact, I was so pleased, that I decided to tweet about it. I tweeted:

Kudos to Impinj. Submitted my resume there. Recruiter sent a very kind “no interest” email. Might be form mail, but better than no response.

I thought my tweet would at least be a little bit of positive publicity for Impinj and a way I could say thank you. If anyone searched Twitter for Impinj, it would show up. It’s not a lot. (It’s not like I have a huge following on Twitter.) But every little bit helps.

In addition, I emailed the recruiter again and told her that I had tweeted about her kindly response and asked her to forward my email on to her manager. I’m a strong believer in rewarding good service or good work. If I’m at a hotel or restaurant and I’m not getting good service, I don’t tip well. Once or twice, I’ve even not tipped at all or left just a token quarter. And I’ve talked to the manager on occasion when the service was really abysmal.

On the flip side, when I get outstanding service, I reward. And I especially make a point of talking to people’s managers when they have gone out of the way to help me or resolve a difficult situation. I try to remember that these people are doing their job. Letting someone in the service industry’s manager know they made a customer happy obviously helps them in their career.

So, I sent this email to the HR person:

To: [name]
Subject: RE: Thank you for your interest in Impinj
In fact, I thought this was so kind of you (compared with most companies that never get back to you) that I tweeted about it:

Kudos to Impinj. Submitted my resume there. Recruiter sent a very kind “no interest” email. Might be form mail, but better than no response.

You’ll see the tweet from me if you search for Impinj on Twitter. I hope you’ll forward this mail to your manager. It’s one small tweet, but another step in building good buzz around your company.

She responded with:

To: Neicole M. Crepeau
Subject: RE: Thank you for your interest in Impinj

Wow–that’s so cool! Thank you very much! One of my greatest pet peeves is companies that don’t ever get back to candidates with a decision. It’s not fun having to turn people down, especially right now, but it’s so much better than leaving them hanging. I appreciate the tweet, and thanks for telling me about it!

No, I didn’t get a job from Impinj and I don’t expect to get one from this little exchange. But I gave and got good Karma, plus something to brighten my day.