Does Your Email Have This Quality to Create a Great First Impression?
The first impression is the Best. When it comes to asking for help with a stranger or even requesting for a job interview, first impression counts. We use as primary for to reach out to strangers these days.
Do you ever consider what the other person will think about you based on your email style and language, format and tone?
During the college admission process, have you sent an email to someone asking for a list of universities for your profile?
Perhaps, you posted the question in a forum or Facebook groups?
While I was talking to Gangadharan (PhD Candidate), he mentioned about the lack of humility when asking for help via email. So, I asked him to go explain in detail.
When you talk to someone for the first time, you just feel that the person has great potential and going to reach great heights in life and career right? That’s Gangadharan.
Life Lessons for Everyone About Using Email
This video is going to upset some, but there’s valuable lessons to be learned from his experience and advice.
(Sorry for the poor audio quality. Increase the volume while watching)
So, what did you think?
Do you think, what the other person will think about you and what sort of impression you they will have about by reading your email?
If not, it’s time to think about it when writing an email, especially if you haven’t met the person face to face.
Mr. Raghuram
I have been following your blog for quite some time and I must say you are a very responsible blogger who provides authentic and detailed information to its readers. Some of your subject lines occasionally border on sensationalism but that’s fine.
I am borderline appalled by the above interview. The term ‘sophistication’ and ‘maturity’ are woefully out of context in the conversation and do not reflect well on the gentleman. I have a lot’s of friends who are international students (from different parts of the world) and a vast majority of them ask questions which seem quite silly to me on first sight, but I tend to empathize with them owing to their lack of knowledge. I do understand that sometimes people contact you with the most bizarre questions which have no rhyme or reason but to lash out vociferously and take pot shots by using strong words like “lower quality” raises a big question mark over the person’s maturity and sophistication. Every time I receive emails that have run of the mill questions, I politely direct them to sources and request them to come up with specific questions where I can use my experience better. But never do I make strong judgements based on few emails. I am astounded. What is wrong If there are students who have a burning ambition to earn money instead of research. Please try to understand that I am not playing the antagonist out here. if someone approaches you with few questions, irrespective of how childish or immature it is, I would address it in the nicest possible way and leave them a small note on things he/she can improve upon. I would not be judgmental about the person. I would place a very humble request to people who are approached for guidance to be less judgmental and more informative every time they are approached for guidance.
The gentleman here seems to be more patronising than providing guidance. An email cannot provide you a complete measure of the person’s maturity and the operative word out here is ‘complete’. If an email address reads “[email protected]”, I would still go ahead and respond to the email and towards the end leave a small note regarding the email address.
I apologise if I rubbed someone the wrong way in the course of this response.
Hello Gary – Thanks for taking time to share your views. I agree with you on one aspect, which is responding to questions, even if they look silly. That’s what I have been doing for last 7 years. I have received over 100,000 questions. Let me give you an real example that happened.
I refer to reader from this blog to my manager for an internship. Manager send him email asking about availability for phone interview in next 2 or 3 weekdays. He response was, I’m busy on weekdays, I can do interview only on weekends. This is a graduate student.
Reason, why I said lack of quality is because, if you are an student with engineering degree and planning to study in USA, you are expected to have certain level of communication skills. Most schools have one course work in English in Engineering. You just don’t use an email id like crazya**[email protected] when applying for a job or college admission application. You may respond, but employer is just not going to hire someone or professor is gonna respond to email. This is just like how people get fired for posting crazy pictures in FB or Twitter.
Hi Raghu,
This is not related to the post above, I need some advice.
I am software professional working in the USA ,I am here on H1B.
It is about my career, I am working as SDTE but from last 1 year ?I am not happy with my job profile.
I tried to search for another job couldn’t do it. What can I do so I will move on with my career?
Any advice will help. Thanks in advance.
-Priya.
Completely true fact and good points.
As a graduate going to different there should be a certain level of sophistication and maturity.
Also regarding the email-id one should use the email-id provided to you by your college,cause that contains the name of your college and by using that the professor can know the genuinity of the mail and chances of getting a reply are good.
Nice one! Good points. irrespective of weather one is writing emails to professors/ strangers/ shaadi.com why cant one use ” I ” instead of i, How difficult is it to remember when and where to use caps? One writing the email might be a genuine person but its frustrating to reply such immature email. Good advice about using a professional email address always. I would add.. right subject line is also a must!
Yes, this is true fact ,In INDIA most of the time we dont realize about this facts,I also got to know more about this after coming here in Germany for my master.We should present any thing in a way in which any particular person expecting you rather than revealing your offset intention for doing that work.
That’s the reason I posted this. People realize only after coming to study abroad.