In these days of instant messages, e-mail and cell phones, communication via letters written in longhand is pretty much a lost art.

So it's a bit surprising that a recent survey found that a majority of executives prefer to receive handwritten post-interview thank-you notes, as opposed to e-mail messages, from job candidates they interview.

But the biggest error an applicant can make is not sending any thank-you at all. While only half of applicants send any kind of thank-you, 88 percent of executives said a thank-you note can boost a job seeker's chances of landing the job, according to the survey commissioned by the Accountemps division of Robert Half International. This is just as true for high-level positions in the law department as it is for those at the bottom of the corporate ladder, according to Charles Volkert, executive director of Robert Half Legal, the legal search division.