There are certain things in life that schools don't teach you. Some skills in life are just learned through experience, not by education. Now, these skills aren’t necessarily unimportant compared to the ones you learn in school, but it may just be that your university doesn’t want to invest an entire course on that specific area of knowledge. However, you do find many situations where you have to develop these skills, despite not having an entire course dedicated towards its development.
Writing Emails
In almost every professional to semi-professional setting, your main method of communication is going to be through email. It can be a little awkward at first to talk with actual grown-ups via email without following the detailed guidelines I did not know had existed. When I was in high school, all I knew how to do was to type in the subject line, open the email, enter in some message, close it, and then send it to its respective recipient. Of course, the formality changed by who the email was sent to. The word choices and grammar were things that we all intuitively catered when it came to professional emailing. However, there are some rules or guidelines I learned through my own experiences about how to email to a specific client or for a specific purpose.
Some of my know-hows I’ve learned at my work is in three peculiar areas: the subject line, the address, the word choice and more specifically— pronouns. The subject line, or the title of your email tells the recipient what the email is about. It’s like the title of a book. It makes the reader think in their head before opening the email if it’s going to be something important or if it’s something that can be overlooked. Because most people get tens, if not hundreds, of emails a day, it’s very important that the title of your email clarifies the urgency, the importance, and the content in the email without being longer than a sentence. A clear and concise subject line captures the recipient and he or she is able to quickly determine the proper response to the email without even opening through it.
The second aspect of emailing is addressing someone, or the order you address someone. This is really simple. First you address the person you are directly speaking with, then CC the people on the other side that are indirectly involved in the conversation, from highest ranking position to the lowest. You then CC people from your side of the conversation, again from highest ranking to the lowest. This is just proper email etiquette, it may or may not be strictly enforced depending on where you work, but it’s always good to know about these little details. Here is another quick tip. Always add the address last, because you never know if you will accidentally hit send on an uncompleted draft, which is pretty embarrassing.
The last emailing skill I want to leave you with is just another communication skill that is important in everyday life: the use of proper pronouns. Depending on the situation, you can either be the principal or the subordinate of a conversation. If I am the principal, my email should consist of what I think, and what I believe needs to be done because the other person is trying to solve the problem that I have. In contrast, if I was talking with you, and you were my client, then my role is now reversed. As the subordinate, I must address your concerns or answer your needs rather than stating my own ideas because they would lose interest in me very quickly. What the other person needs is an effective problem solver and someone who understands their needs and can communicate with them how they can come to help.
**I’m also going to throw in a small tip. Always begin with a proper greeting and an ending. It looks really unprofessional, and unfriendly when you forget these common sense salutations. Unless you are replying back on a thread, then in most cases you don’t have to greet them again if it is replied within a reasonable time. But closing should always be there.**
I’ve taken lots of business course with various teachers at my university, but not one professor has told me the importance of writing good emails. I don’t think it’s because emails important, but because in the “real” world, it is almost expected from you to know these things. Otherwise, you will have to learn through your own experience or from your own research. What I have listed above is merely some skills I’ve learned from my job, however they may not apply to the job that you work. It is crucial that you start developing your own emailing skills so that later you can effectively communicate to whomever it may be.
