I once received an e-mail from a reporter and friend that had an eyebrow-raising signer at the bottom of the message. I was not offended but knew others would be, so I wrote back to him and asked if he intended for me to get that.
He was so embarrassed. Apparently, his partner had written the signature line as a private joke between the two of them. My friend was not even aware of what it said because it didn’t display on his e-mails.
This came back to me when I read a post by Jacob Share on JobMob about how this ubiquitous piece of branding real estate is so ignored.
Every day, you send out many e-mails. Are you using your signature line to your advantage? Probably not.
I just received one from an editor at a major newspaper that had no signature at all. At minimum, a telephone number and his title would be nice.
Others use their signature lines for wacky, off-putting sayings. I received one from a job prospect whose signature said:
“We’ll be old friends until we are aged and senile. Then we’ll be new friends every day thereafter.”
He took my suggestion and changed it.
I know that by now everyone knows to use professional messages on their voice mail. But we need to be even more careful with e-mail signatures. Unlike our voice mail greeting, an e-mail signer can be copied, posted, forwarded and can live on in a hundred ways.
I have two colleagues who post a lot of work online. One’s signature includes five links. The other has seven. That is too many. Narrow that to just a couple, or create a hub or portal that would direct people to the right places. Another option is to use different signers, depending on the recipients’ interests.
What links should you include to brand yourself? I would list, in order, your hub site or portfolio, your LinkedIn page and your employer’s site or business site. You can edit your signature through the settings option in your e-mail account.
The same goes for phone numbers. Don’t send your cell, office and fax numbers on every e-mail. Faxes are becoming so secondary that it hardly seems necessary to make that part of a standard signer.
Keep your signature short. One friend writes short e-mails, but his signature is more than a dozen lines. You can add more information to one line, using pipes (||) or colons (::) as dividers.
Avoid images (especially animated ones) and v-cards in your signature. They are not needed and can prevent your message from getting through, show up as attachments or have long download times.
Some advise you not to use colors. I normally follow that, but teaching at Michigan State University, where green is everything, has made me go green for part of my signature.
Check you signature periodically by e-mailing yourself, and remember to send e-mails from your phone and tablet, too, just to see your signature the way others do.
Career questions? E-mail Joe for an answer.
Coming Tuesday: How job-seekers get found when there is no one to look.
Comments