Remember the post this weekend on how the internet is ruining our brain? Recap: This is your brain on books- healthy, pink brain. This is your brain on internet- sloppy mess of a brain with loss of memory replaced by Google. Eek! Well, I shared my feelings on that this weekend, but the reason I bring it up is because it shared some great statistics. Specifically, how often we use the internet. We use the internet for information searches, email, chat, entertainment, etc. We constantly move from one window to another and check our email at least once every two minutes we are on the internet. That doesn’t hold true for everyone of course, but you can bet that recruiters and employers hiring new employees are constantly checking their email.
With these recruiters and employers receiving hundreds of emails a day, you can understand how one or two emails may get lost in the bunch. Even more common, it could be very easy for a recruiter to brush your email off as spam or garbage. After all, nearly 98 percent of the emails we receive are spam. Since we receive so much spam these days, recruiters and employers have spam filters to weed out these pointless emails from their inbox. Even you likely have a spam filter for your personal email address. However great these filters may be, sometimes they make mistakes. Without the correct body, header or subject title your hopeful resume and information could mistakenly get dubbed as spam and never again see the light of day with that recruiter. This is sad- no one wants their resume neglected and dubbed as garbage. Especially if your email contains your video resume that you worked hard to create.
Adding your video resume to your email is a great way to really get noticed by recruiters and employers. You can show them your passion for your work and express to them why you are great for their open position. But when recruiters are constantly in a rush and have hundreds of job seekers to look at, how do you avoid them thinking your video resume link is just spam? So many emails today have extra links inside them that lead to virtually no where. On top of that, with so many people to look at in a day, recruiters may not take the time to even click the link. So how do you share your video resume without the recruiter thinking it’s spam?
Contact List
If you have already been in contact with this recruiter or employer, ask them to add your email address to their contact list or email address list. This will prevent any future emails from you being dubbed as spam or garbage. Also, make sure you follow their directions for sending information and documents their way. Sending an email isn’t rocket science, but if they give you specific directions, make sure to read and follow them. Once you send an important email with your information and video resume, send a follow-up email to make sure they got it. Wait a day to three days before you do this though, otherwise it can be annoying.
Multiple Emails At Once
This should be something you are already avoiding, in the interest of maximizing your job search, but alas people still do it. Sending out a mass emails containing your resume, video resume and information is tacky and lazy. First of all, you should be tailoring your resume to each open position, not just sending along whatever you have to any employer that is hiring. Second of all, sending a mass email out to a ton of recipients is a fast-track to having your email dubbed as spam. Since you are sending the same email to so many addresses at once, your email provider may send it to only half and the recipients may block the email since their provider can see that this email was sent to 49 other addresses. This is just tacky and pointless, really, so avoid it altogether.
Subject
This is a large reason some recruiters either avoid your email or their email provider marks your message as spam. If you have a long, complicated subject title no one is going to want to open your email. They may even overlook it because it already looks like spam. If you leave your subject line blank, it’s confusing and shows a lack of effort or observation on your part. Both of these things are bad, so avoid them. In fact, JobHunt.org provided a number of things to avoid in your subject lines so recruiters don’t think your email is spam. Take a look:
-Don’t use punctuation!*”!!,,,>> especially exclamation marks. These are corny anyways
-DO YOU LIKE WHEN PEOPLE YELL AT YOU WITH CAPITAL LETTERS? Don’t use all caps.
-Avoid numbers and dollar signs 12$$87
-Avoid words like “free”, “investment”, “prescription”. Spammers use these words
Minimal Links
Your email should contain very few links. In fact, more than two is a bit excessive. I’d say one link for your video resume and one link for a website you have is enough. Any more than that and you are subjecting the recruiter to an information overload.
Zip
Avoid compressed or zipped files. Recruiters don’t really appreciate these. If you want to be absolutely sure that this person sees your resume and information, you can simply paste it in the body of the email instead of attaching it. Although some recruiters don’t appreciate this, it is a great way to be sure that they will be able to open and view your resume. (Personally, I send my resume as a PDF file so issues with Word or Macs or whatever aren’t even an issue.)
Avoiding these things and taking these tips to heart can be a surefire way to make sure your resume and video resume get looked at by a recruiter. Be smart. You worked hard on these things, especially your video resume, so don’t let them go to waste by forgetting to execute these super simple tasks.
SOURCE: JobHunt.org
IMAGE: Courtesy of Cyber Coyote
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