Etiquette – This will help you get a job!

Published by Valpak Mark on September 5th, 2007 in Career Development, Employment, Recruiting, Work, Work/Life | 24 Comments

I'm writing today as I call potential hires. We're bringing them to Florida for interviews. The grads that I am calling are not expecting a phone call from me. As I'm doing this, a few things came to mind that I'll post in the hopes of helping you avoid the same mistakes.

Cell Phones

As I tried to call someone they had the song "Call Me" by Blondie (released in 1980 – several years before this person was even born!) playing before the answering machine message came on. I thought it was cute, for about four seconds. In fact, I found my self singing along, for about two seconds. After 10 seconds I started to get irritated. It seemed like 15 minutes before this: "Hi, this is Mindy. I can't come to the phone right now, etc."

Another person I tried to call had a voicemail message of, "Hi guy, I can't take your call right now, etc."

Gang, you are trying to get jobs. You are going to be competing against someone who has opted to have a boring message like, "Hi, this is Mark, I can't come to the phone right now. If you would please leave a message I will call you back the moment that I can. Thank you for your patience."

As an employer I am thinking about when one of my customers calls Mindy or the "guy lady" and gets a cutesy message that makes them want to do biz with someone else.

I realize it is more fun to have a cute message – but it is even better getting a paycheck every week.

Facebook & MySpace

Of course, I am a member of both. My best friend's son, Joe, invited me to be his "friend" once he knew I was on Facebook. That was cool…until I read his blog last Friday. I'm sure Joe had a beer or nine before he wrote it. I love this kid like he is my own. However, I learned A LOT about him that night!

My point? Don't leave stuff – THAT YOU WRITE – on Facebook or MySpace where a potential employer can read it. I've done more dumb things than most people I know over the past 25 years, but I really don't want any potential employer to see them – at least until I've been dead for a couple decades. I know you can't control what your friends write. But you can control the pics that you put on your space, the blogs, etc.

One job that I got years ago was because the employer's parents were best friends with my parents in 1946 in a city 100 miles away. HONESTLY! As your network friends invite other friends to the network you have no idea who is going to read what you write. I'm sure Joe has no idea that I read what I did.

E-Mails

Two quick notes here. Do yourself a favor. Get a gmail, yahoo or other free service besides your college e-mail account. I am trying to recruit people who only listed their college e-mail address. Guess what? The college no longer lets them use that address and I have no way to quickly reach them. It's like having a cell phone, but never leaving it on.

Another quickie. Don't send sexually explicit stuff, nasty jokes, swear words, etc. in your WORK e-mail address – or to anyone else's work e-mail address. On my drive home last night I was listening to the Clark Howard show and he said that one-third of big companies now hire people to read their employees PERSONAL e-mails sent/received from work. Tell your friends to send their nasty stuff to gmail.

Finally!

If you have an employer call you – return the call as quickly as possible. Don't say, "Oh, yeah, I got your call last night." It happened today as I was calling someone. I don't think I want to send her a plane ticket to Tampa.

Even if you think the job is not for you, return the call. I have two openings – one she might really like, but will never learn about because my perception is that "my call wasn't important."

Happy job hunting. I hope this helps!