| I've been using e-mail since 1981 (yikes!), so I've sent or received probably every e-mail mistake possible. It has definitely given me some insight into e-mail etiquette - what works and what doesn't.
Describing one set of "rules" for all e-mail is a Herculean, if not nearly impossible, task. However, there are some fundamental rules which should be observed, but frequently aren't:
1. Don't assume that e-mail is private.
Golden rule of e-mail - Don't put anything in an e-mail that you wouldn't be comfortable having your Mother or your boss - or the person you may be writing about - read on the front page of The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal.
Your message may be forwarded endlessly (see # 2 below), and copies are retained by various parts of the Internet's infrastructure as part of the back up and record retention processes.
E-mail is "discoverable" in a Court proceeding - yes, you can probably (if you have enough money) find that e-mail your ex-husband sent to his girlfriend BEFORE the divorce, even though he THINKS he deleted it off his home and/or office computers. It's still hidden on a few computers in the world.
2. Don't forward endless strings of forwarded messages with "open" e-mail addresses. Dangerous and annoying!
People often do this because it's quick and also because they may not understand how to use their e-mail software to eliminate the problem. A string of six sets of address headers before you get to the "core" message is annoying. It can also be dangerous because often the other e-mail addresses in the string are sent "in the open" which means you see all the other e-mail addressees in each "generation" of forwarding. This is one of the ways that e-mail addresses are "harvested" by the people who sell lists of addresses to spammers.
If you feel that you absolutely MUST share a message with your family and/or friends, send it TO: yourself with the real addressees in the BCC: line where they can't be viewed by the world at large, particularly if someone in your family is famous for forwarding "stuff" to everyone.
Of course, spam filters along the route may knock out messages with long lists of either To: (or BCC:) addresses because such a long list of addressees looks spam-like.
3. Make the subject short, interesting, and appropriate.
Often a few rounds of "replying" can render the original subject completely irrelevant to the actual topic. The message series started out scheduling a meeting, but the last mesasge in the series was about advertising in the local newspaper as the e-mailed "conversation" progessed over time. However, if the subject line didn't change to reflect the change in topic, it will be nearly impossible to later track what was written about the advertisement. So, when the topic changes, change the subject line, too.
Leaving the message blank can be a fatal error, causing spam filters to spring into action, dumping the message into a junk mail folder or deleting it. In addition, spam filters will often kill messages with topics like "Important!" or "Hi, it's me!" because those topics are used so often by spammers.
4. Don't send an e-mail message about something you wouldn't put in a voicemail.
For me, the prime example of this was receiving - in the office - a message telling me that a good friend had just died. I happened to be reading my e-mail when a phone call came in, and that message was the one I opened as I answered the phone. Blew me completely out of the water! I had to quickly and semi-gracefully terminate the business call while fighting tears. And, the person who sent that message would never have been so insensitive to leave that news in a voicemail, but e-mail seemed an efficient and a less emotional way to convey the news to the many people who cared.
5. Don't forward threatening good-luck messages.
I hate receiving one of those messages that MUST be forwarded to 6 (or 20) other people in the next 4 (or 96) hours or something bad will happen to the recipient. Those messages just clog up the Internet, waste bandwidth, annoy people, and make the senders look like superstitious bumpkins. If you want to stay in touch with someone without going to the effort of actually taking the time to write something to them, delete the threat off the bottom of the good luck message and just send the person the good luck!
E-mail is a wonderful tool, but it can be made more effective with experience and attention - and, of course - reading Job-Hunt.org's articles about using e-mail.
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About the author...
Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce has been observing the online job search world and teaching online job search skills since 1995. Susan is a two-time layoff "graduate" who has worked in human resources at Harvard University and in a compensation consulting firm. In 1998, her company, NETability, Inc. purchased Job-Hunt.org, and Susan has been editor and publisher of Job-Hunt since then. Follow Susan on Twitter at @jobhuntorg.
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