Of thank-you cards, that is.

One day, I went to Target, bought a 50-pack of cute little cherry-blossomed letterpress thank-you cards intended for a budget wedding and promptly shoved it in the corner of my desk drawer, convinced it would probably remain there, unopened, until I pack everything up at the end of my summer internship and take it home again.

I was so wrong.

Those little buggers have been oh-so-handy in the past few weeks. Now I’m not a huge suck-up gushy person, and I’ve always felt weird about some of the super-traditional tips I’ve heard about job searching and networking. That being said, I’m also a nice person, and I do think people should be thanked for going above and beyond what they’re paid to do (and, of course, the sucking-up quality of it couldn’t hurt).

My summer internship is part of a real internship program—one that “strongly recommends” we take major advantage of the networking opportunities within a large state agency. At the beginning of the summer, each intern got a binder full of names and contact information and instructions to do at least 25 informational interviews with interesting people. Now last I checked, no one had even made it to ten, and I certainly don’t plan to hit the target.

But I’m in the midst of these meetings right now, and I have to say they’re fascinating, educational and definitely good for my career. Some have been within my own department, some in totally different areas of the agency and a few not within my agency at all (think other state agencies, counties, etc.). They’ve already produced some job and master’s thesis leads, which is fabulous. They’ve helped me understand what’s out there, what I might want to dabble in someday, what I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. And they’re helping me build my network—something that just seems more and more important every day.

And, really, how could I not thank a person for that? I have no idea whether anyone will remember my precious little cherry blossom thank-you card the next time they have a job opening in their department, but it couldn’t hurt—and is probably the right thing to do career-wise and person-wise.
Thanks to Fern R. for the thank-you card photo (I daresay they might be cuter than mine...)