On interviewing for a job: Contacting a company in email

I wrote in an earlier post about the research you should do before interviewing with a company.  You should do that research not only before your interview but also before your initial contact with a company.  When that contact comes through email, as it very frequently does today, you have a great opportunity to make a big impression on the company.  Whether that impression is good or bad depends on how you handle your message. 

For starters, make sure all your text is clear, to the point, grammatically correct, and free of spelling errors.  Note I said "all your text".  That's because you're writing not just a message body but also possibly a cover-letter attachment, a resume, and a Subject line.  I have seen many an error on the Subject line, and those errors are sure to leave exactly the impression you don't want.

You can avoid many of these errors through a simple trick:  compose the entire message, including the Subject line, in Word, and turn on its grammar and spelling checkers.  Those tools are far from perfect, but they will at least stop a lot of the most obvious errors. 

You should make sure you customize the content of everything you send to the particular application you're making.  Yes, that is a lot of work, but the whole process takes effort, so get over it and do the work.  Nothing will make you look like someone who doesn't give a damn quite as much as a message that refers to a job from another company's ad--or even that other company; yes, I have received such messages. 

Instead, state clearly and in brief why you want this particular job at this particular company, and then why you think you'd be great at it.  If you're a hard worker committed to learning and improving, say so.  You might think everyone is and everyone would say so, but you'd be wrong on both counts. 

I'm not going to spend time going into resumes, because you can easily find plenty of information on how to compose them, except to make these two points:  list your experience in reverse chronological order, from most recent job to first, and keep it short.  I've been working full-time for decades, and I've had a lot of jobs, and my default resume fits on one page. 

If everything I've said sounds to you like a basic tidbit that everyone should know, I agree.  I'm always amazed, though, at how many first email messages fail to obey these most basic guidelines--and at how many job opportunities those errors cost people.

On interviewing for a job: Learning about the company and its people

No, I'm not interviewing for a job.  I'm writing this entry, which I expect will be the first of an on-again, off-again series, because over the last several years I've come to believe that despite all the available information, an amazing number of people fail at the basics in a job interview. 

One of those basics is that if you haven't done a lot of easy research before an interview, you've already blown it--or at least hurt your chances.  This preparation is easy, though it does take a bit of time. 

You should begin by going to the Web site of the company and reading a lot of its pages.  Learn about its products, its culture, its marketing, and its team.  Check out all the social-media venues in which it's active.  If it has YouTube channel, spend a little time there, too. 

If you're greatly interested in the company, consider doing basic searches on the names of the people with whom you'll be meeting.  Between Google and LinkedIn, you can often learn a lot about your potential colleagues and employers.  I'm not suggesting stalking or obsessive digging, mind you; just basic preparation.

To my surprise, an amazing number of people either skip this work or go to a company's home page and stop.  You can learn some information that way, but so much more is available that it's foolish not to take advantage of that information.

I'm not suggesting you do this, by the way, so you can suck up to the interviewers.  I think it's important because it helps you have as much context as possible for what you see and hear in the interview, and also so that you can make an informed decision about whether the company interests you. 

This is really just today's version of an old bit of advice that still applies to job-hunting (and to many other areas of life):  Do your homework.

A piece of job interview advice I've never read elsewhere

Don't wear any perfume or cologne. 

Some would amend this advice to say "wear at most very little scent," but I believe you're safest wearing none.

Before going further, let me stress that no one I've interviewed recently has violated this advice, and I'm not talking about anyone in particular.  So, if you're reading this blog and wondering if I'm talking about you, I almost certainly am not.

In past years, though, I have run into multiple candidates of both genders who chose to douse themselves in such strong scents that their odor inevitably became a topic of conversation among those discussing their interviews.  This is not a good thing, because you want those who have interviewed you to be discussing only how great you are, how you'd fit with their teams, and so on.

This bit of advice is particularly crucial, by the way, because most interviews occur in relatively small spaces (offices, small conference rooms) whose doors are closed for the obvious privacy reasons.

A corollary is that it's probably a good idea to come to an interview freshly showered and dressed appropriately--or slightly over-dressed.  Starting an interview reeking of gym funk--and, yes, in years past I've encountered this--is effectively choosing a different scent and just as bad as wearing too much perfume or cologne.

If this piece of advice is unnecessary, sorry about taking your time.  If, though, you were planning an interview and trying to choose the right cologne or perfume, then put them all away, take a shower, and head off to win a job.