Did the title of this blog post capture your attention? Wonderful,
Office 2010 Professional Plus Key! It had been meant to, but I ought to advise you in opposition to this kind of shock strategies. Why? I obtain really some requests for help in my e-box daily,
Buy Windows 7 Home Basic, and you would be surprised at the different ways applicants talk with recruiters. For example, titling your email with a totally irrelevant subject headline, this sort of as the way I titled this weblog publish, shocks me into opening the message, but then I am (most likely) not going to read any email you send me while in the future. (And for the record, I know Robert Scoble and guess what? I don’t hate him and you really should not either.)
Another recruiter pet peeve is the ambivalence of some of the requesters. For example, I may get an email that says (in so many words), “Will you aid me get into Microsoft (or anywhere else for that matter)?” or at least, that’s what they mean to say. What I actually receive is a blank email with a resume attached and nothing within the subject line. I suppose I am to fill within the blanks - sigh. Another type of email I get a lot of is an email that is part of a long chain of recruiters inside the CC or BCC field, with the subject line of “resume.” My presumption is the word “resume” is meant to grab my focus and entice me to open the email in a hurry - double sigh…
The average recruiter gets a LOT of email from more than just jobseekers. So should certainly you feel defeated before you even email a recruiter? Not at all… If you will permit me,
Office 2007 Professional Key, let me share a few strategies that will increase your chances of your email being read (quickly) and resolved to your potential satisfaction.
1. Make your recipient feel special. Do not add me to a spam list whereby you send me your resume along with countless other recruiters. This does not come across as your being genuinely interested in Microsoft. It says instead, that you are shooting your resume everywhere with the hope that it will stick somewhere soon. Every company wants to feel that you are enthusiastic about working for them and not that they are an employer of convenience. Likewise, you wouldn’t want an employer putting you on the “to” line with hundreds of other applicants. You want to feel special.
2. Get my interest. Instead of the email subject line shock tactic I discussed earlier, I would suggest that you make the subject of your email enticing and accurate. So what would be an enticing headline for a recruiter? Glad you asked! Howzabout squeezing the purpose of your email and the gist of your resume, into 15 words or less? Sound hard? It’s not extremely, let me share some examples… Introduction: John Doe-Software Engineer. 5 yrs exp. C++ Guru seeking manager role Intro: Sales – 3 years selling enterprise products, ex-IBM, ex-Oracle Chat? Brand Marketer, working but curious about Microsoft. 4 years with Intel Jobcode 123456 – I’ve been fixing broken software at Apple for 9 years. QA geek
Subject lines like these enable a recruiter to immediately grasp an idea about your work history and plot out an immediate course of action. Fairly ######y…
3. Support me, support you…I get a lot of email, but you know that already. When following-up on the status of our conversation, ALWAYS reply with the original email from the body of the text. Simply hit “reply” on the last email we exchanged and that will assist me to remember where we left off. Although I may have a decent memory, I am not an elephant, so I may not remember the status of each person inside the interview process. (Please do not be offended by that.) If you remind me (or your recruiter) of your last communique,
Office Professional Plus 2010 Key, it will save them the trouble of tracking you in their Outlook and thereby speed up the response time of them getting back to you.
4. Be assertive, but not too pushy. If you have attempted to contact a particular recruiter and your emails have gone unanswered, then I feel your pain. You want to be persistent, yet you also do not want to come across as a pest. This is what I suggest: return to the headline of your email and gently remind the recruiter of your previous attempts. For example, here are some suggested subject lines… 3rd Attempt: Game Designer, 2 years with Atari. Seeking relocation to Redmond Seeking Follow-up: Discussed Job 123456 on 9.1.06. Last try: Product Manager – 2 emails,
Buy Windows 7, one voice. 1st email on 8.26.06
I’m certain these suggestions will increase your “thanks for calling me back” to “my resume is in a blackhole” ratio for the better. (Smile)
Good luck!
-Jim