Rita Ashley, Career Coach. Field tested advice for executives.

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By rashley, October 14, 2009 2:18 pm

This morning my email revealed four personal messages from LinkedIn readers who responded to my comments and posts.

Each complained of overly long job searches and expressed they had no clue what is going on.  They wondered:  Blacklisted?  Are the jobs real?

Nope.  Your writing is so poor your credentials are not being considered.  Seriously, if you can’t write a decent email or cover letter how can you be expected to speak  well and represent the company?

It’s too easy to assume follow-up didn’t occur because of age, too many applicants or other spurious reasons.

Fact is, most cover letters, emails and even blog post responses demonstrate very poor written communications.  No matter how informal the correspondence, it must demonstrate you are literate and educated.  Never say, “It’s just an email.”

Be especially mindful of use of advice/advise and never use exclamation points in business correspondence.  If what you say is important and true, you don’t need to call attention with punctuation.

Don’t get cute or use smiley faces.  Read your missive aloud to ascertain proper sentence structure and word usage.  Still not sure?  Let someone proof your work.

Job Search is stressful and mistakes are easily made. Don’t let your writing mistakes prevent you from making it to the next step.

Your LinkedIn profile is often the first thing people see about you.  Tear yours apart for grammar and sentence structure.  Does every line convey a compelling message?  Can the reader immediately see what you can do for them and why you are exceptional?

Make certain your writing is excellent and you will increase the success of your job search.  Just last week two of my clients received compliments from hiring authorities on the organization and flow of their resumes and cover letter.  People notice. Make certain your communications are being noticed for all the right reasons.

Need help evaluating your LinkedIn profile?  Is your resume getting complements? Do you have a compelling elevator pitch?  Check out my web site for information on Coaching to fix those elements…

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By admin, December 30, 2008 4:25 pm

This is my favorite time of year to send out greetings to everyone I know.  My mood is elevated by connecting to people I know and enjoy, even if it is only digitally.  I like that I am reminded of how I know them, the encounters of the past year and the sincere warm greetings I extend.

What I don’t like is that email is a corrupted, unpredictable tool.  Today I sent six “practice” emails to myself to ascertain the aesthetics of my message.  Only three were delivered to me.  It wasn’t that they were delayed, it was that they disappeared into that great digital ether.

How many times, I ask myself, do emails vanish with no warning or notice to the sender?  I suspect many more times than we would like to think.  Because the mailer daemon frequently alerts us to failed emails, we assume we are warned every time; a false hope.

As a job search coach, I frequently use email as IM for immediate and collaborative resume or elevator pitch creation.  In every case, at least one email is lost, sometimes more.  It is not unusual to resend three or four times before the email is delivered.

My personal experience tells me to warn all email users:  Never assume an email is delivered simply because you did not recieve a failure notice.

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