Even if it isn’t goofy, an email address could potentially torpedo your job search before you even get it off the ground because the one that you are using doesn’t project a professional image. If you have to create a new ‘professional‘ email, then do so, but don’t forget to check it. Sometimes, candidates get so caught up checking their social email accounts that they forget to open up their business one… only to find a message from an employer dated 3 weeks ago waiting for them.

You can pretty much bet that opportunity has already passed and is now a dead end. Lack of response means the employer is moving on to the next candidate. It’s now up to you to conduct a quick review and see if your email address needs triage help, stat. Here are some key email address-naming tips to help you in maintaining your professionalism on your resume:

1) Stay away from things that might tip off your age. Avoid year of birth, graduation, or age references. Oh, and mentioning that you are a member of a retired persons group. It’s illegal, downright despicable, but yet difficult to prove – employers are discriminating against people because of their age, so you should make sure to remove age references completely.

2) Avoid political, gender, or religious references. You may be very passionate about a particular belief, cause, or affiliation, but you don’t need to be in an employer’s face about it. After all, they aren’t hiring you for what you believe… they are hiring you for what you can DO.

3) Be careful about health references too. Being a cancer survivor is great, but if you let an employer know that before you get to the interview, their concern about health care costs might cause them to ‘lose’ your application… if you know what I mean. Seriously. It can and does happen.

4) Keep It Simple, Stupid. If you have an email address that looks like some kind of code and doesn’t make any kind of logical sense, create an easy one to type into a message. No one likes peering at their keyboard to hunt and peck out a random assortment of letters and numbers.

5) Safest bet? Your name. Your name as the email address is your best bet. If you have a common name, then add some random number or variation that still makes it clear that this is your name.

Make sure to remove any and all objections an employer might find in your career materials and documents when making an application. Your future could depend on it!

Things to Consider in Partnership Formation

If you are interested in forming a partnership for the purpose of running and operating your business it is important that you begin working with a partner your believe in and one you can trust. Beyond this, there are many things you must consider. These include the following:

* How much will the different partners be paid?
* How will profits be distributed?
* Who will be the head of the organization? If sharing power, who will be the head of the various employees and departments?
* How will decisions be made? Must they all be collaborative or will the relationship be more independent?

Because there are so many things that must be considered when forming a professional partnership, and because the relationship must remain at its core one of professionalism, it is important that those interested in partnership formation seek the input and assistance of an experienced legal professional. This will not only help you cover all your bases, but it will also help you properly abide by all business laws.

The following guideline provides you with assessment elements that should be considered.

Consulting team – be careful to ensure you know and trust the consultant who will be working on your behalf. Learn as much as you can about their professionalism. Inquire if they personally have a reputation for being successful or whether their own career consists of disjointed moves.

Check the track record – don’t let the list of clients on a website fool you. Check to determine if positions were actually filled or whether another consulting firm had to be called in to finish the job. Ask for client references, especially for those assignments that were particularly difficult.

Confirm the sourcing process – finding the right CEO for an organization requires in-depth research and marketing of the opportunity. Determine if the search firm has research capabilities so that hidden candidates can be approached with the opportunity.

Confirm the interview process – if your search professional is meeting the candidate face to face for the first time in front of your client interview panel, then the search process is flawed. Every potential candidate needs to be thoroughly interviewed, not simply by telephone but in person, face-to-face prior to being recommended to the client.

Insist on client partnership – search consultants who work as lone wolves and who resist client involvement typically have preset views of your candidate qualifications and salary requirements. They rarely listen to client needs.

Watch for hidden costs – some search consultants charge an hourly rate for candidate research over and above their consulting fee. Look for an all inclusive rate. Know what you are buying so that there are no surprises.

Seek local market rates – don’t let a big firm perception lull you into paying bigger fees than you need to. Search has in fact become a commodity and so prices are quite standard. Check out the cost with all your potential search firms; ask for a definition and rationale for each expense.

Build a relationship – the most effective way to utilize the services of an executive search firm is to build a long term relationship. You need to trust the search professional that your interests are being served and that conflict of interest is nowhere to be seen. Help the search professional to fully understand your organization so that he/she can help build your teams, rather than simply focusing on a singular appointment.

Yes!

True, many well-qualified applicants are offered jobs despite neglecting to send a personal thank you letter. But why take that chance? If you don’t write a job interview thank you letter, you’re missing a great opportunity to continue describing and demonstrating your greatest skills and strengths!

Professionalism

A well-written and correctly-timed job interview thank you letter demonstrates professionalism and strong communication skills as well as punctuality and reliability.

Follow-Through

It also demonstrates that all-important ability to “follow through” that employers are desperately searching for from each and every applicant.

Resilience

If you feel that it was a sub-par interview performance on your part, then job interview thank you letters also demonstrate resilience – that you’re willing and able to take your disappointing interview and turn it around or transform it into a job offer. You’re sending the message, “I’m not giving up that easily!”

Say What You Would Have Said…

Personal thank you letters also offer you the opportunity to take time to prepare a particular message to the employer – a luxury that you don’t often enjoy while answering a variety of challenging questions during your interview. Interview performances are “on the spot” and never perfect – we often feel like there’s something we could have done or said differently. Using personal thank you letters, you can continue to describe and demonstrate your particular qualifications and abilities.

Take the Time to Write it Well

A poorly-written job interview thank you letter, on the other hand, can only hurt your chances of getting a job offer and can actually diminish your status in the eyes of the interviewers. This includes letters that lack enough persuasive content or are not carefully edited and proofread.

Exactly what should I say in my personal thank you letter? Job interview thank you letters are designed to be brief and to the point, making only a few points using a few sentences, and to follow 3 simple steps.

Step 1) Thank You!

The first “thank you” or a statement of appreciation for the interview. Everyone loves to be thanked for their time and attention. Showing genuine appreciation is one of the easiest and most effective ways to build rapport with new people, and a thank you letter is an easy way to do this!

Here are a few examples to get you started:

“I very much appreciated the opportunity to meet with you and your team earlier today.”
“Thank you for the opportunity to get to know you and your growing organization.”
“Thank you for our interview. I very much enjoyed our meeting and hope to continue to get to know you and your company.”

Step 2) Emphasize a Positive, Downplay a Negative or Fill in a Gap

The second thing you want to do is take a sentence or two (three sentences maximum) to add value to your interview performance. Make an important point about your interview – either emphasize a positive, downplay a negative, or fill in a gap. This is in keeping with your interview “game plan” – your specific plan to tell the interviewers about your most impressive strengths and highest-level skills while minimizing your weaknesses.

Emphasizing a Positive

What messages or clues did you get from the interviewers suggesting what was vitally important or exciting to them, where their voice, posture or facial expressions “perked up?” Which of your qualifications or interview answers seemed to jive the most with them or noticeably capture their attention and interest?

You could mention something about this in your personal thank you letter, using statements starting with “I.” For instance, you could start like this:

“I would like to emphasize that I offer over 4 years experience working with older psychiatric patients – a strong fit with your organization’s current needs”, or…
“I know that my graduate degree in organic chemistry prepares me particularly well to fulfil the challenges of this new research role”, or…
“I am confident that my ten years of clerical experience in a similar professional environment would make me a strong fit for your new office team”…

Downplaying a Negative

Did you say something in your interview that you now feel worried or regretful about? Maybe you don’t think you did a good job at answering a “weakness” question and are concerned that the employer might decide not to hire you because you over-stated a weakness in the “heat of the moment.”

Write a few words to soften your answer, like this:

“During the interview, I mentioned that I often want to do things perfectly. I would like to clarify that I have learned over the past few years to soften this approach. I am now able to do my work quite accurately without causing myself undue stress.”
“As I mentioned in our discussion yesterday, I am continuing to study Spanish, and am confident that I can speak fluently with your Spanish-speaking customers about a wide variety of concerns.”

Filling in a Gap

Perhaps there was a part of your interview that just didn’t work out the way you’d hoped. You didn’t answer a question well, or perhaps didn’t answer it at all due to a mental block or because you didn’t prepare properly for that particular question. The solution: Answer it now, in your personal thank you letter! Perhaps in filling in this gap through your job interview thank you letter, you can help to put the employer’s mind to rest about that particular issue, and greatly improve your chances of getting hired.

Here are a couple of examples:

“One of the questions that you raised during the interview addressed my ability to deal with conflict in the workplace. I would like you to know that I have faced misunderstandings with co-workers in the past that I have always been able to fully resolve through approaching them directly, politely and respectfully.”
“You asked during the interview about what it means to be professional. To me, professionalism includes many interpersonal skills, including but not limited to punctuality, reliability and always treating both customers and co-workers with respect and kindness.”

Step 3: Say “Thank You Again” and Offer to Answer Further Questions

End your job interview thank you letters by saying thank you again and offering to answer further questions. This demonstrates openness and a desire to stay in touch. It is common to write the actual words, “Thank you again” at this point in the personal thank you letter.

For instance, you could write,

“Thank you again. Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions about my skills, experience or education. I can be reached during the days at (465) 238-5412.”

If possible, make your job interview thank you letter shorter without deleting any of your best writing. Examine every word for relevance and if you don’t need it, delete it! As always, proofread your letter and ask a trusted friend or family member to examine it for typos and and make sure that it conveys a very positive message about you.

Can I send a personal thank you letter using a personal/greeting card?

This is generally not a good idea. Sending a job interview thank you letter using a greeting card may send the wrong message. The employer may interpret it as overly-personal and not in keeping with professional protocol and boundaries.

It’s the content that matters. So it’s better to send a job interview thank you letter using email – a simple email with a simple font, simple signature and professional-sounding email address. Send it in the body of the email and not as an attachment – keep it simple.

Who to Send the Personal Thank You Letter To, and When

Send the letter to everyone who interviewed you, or at least your main contact. To make the best impression, send job interview thank you letters later on the same day as your interview or early the next morning.

Summary

In summary then, here are the steps to writing a great personal thank you letter:

1) Say thank you in your own words
2) Emphasize a positive, downplay a negative or fill in a gap
3) Say “thank you again” and offer to answer further questions

Other key points to remember:

Always take the time to write a personal thank you letter, and ensure that it is well written, edited and proofread. Send it within 24 hours, via email. Most important of all, make sure that it conveys this very positive, powerful message: “I’m ready!”