Question for recruiters/hirers re: email ettiquete

In My Humble Opinion
1

I know we have a few people here who have (or have had) roles in hiring and interviewing.

When you’re in the ‘email exchange’ phase of things - arranging the next stage of interview, transmitting bits of information with the prospect, etc. - how important is it to you that the prospect respond affirmatively to each email?

Example (obviously highly truncated) email string:

Manager: Great phone call yesterday. Can you meet next week in person?
Prospect: Sure can.
M: Great. I’ll send you details tomorrow.
P: Thank you so much, I look forward to hearing from you.
M: Here are the location details for our interview.
P: Thank you so much, I look forward to meeting you.

How important are the bolded bits? Does it feel like the prospect is overly eager? Trying to get the last word? Expressing common sense polite manners? The whole process feels stilted enough as is.

Thank you so much for your replies. I look forward to hearing from you.

2

Usually, HR has handled that stuff. But when i arrange interviews for college (which i do myself) i prefer a response, so i know the person got my email. And i especially want a confirmation that the time, etc. actually does work.

So i think the first bold is nice to have, but i wouldn’t care if it were omitted, and the second bold is something I’m looking for, and would be anxious if i didn’t get it.

3

Agree with Puzzlegal. The second one is required. The first is optional.

4

“Dress for the job you want, not for the job you have.”

I’ll riff on that by saying, "Overcommunicate a bit until it becomes clear that you are overcommunicating.

(son of a retired HR exec for a really big organization)

ETA: the ‘courtesy’ responses can be quite concise. More words isn’t better in the examples given. Short and sweet.

5

Heh, I tend to respond “k” or “cool”.

6

See, now I couldn’t hire you for fear you’d talk my damned ear off :wink:

7

Also, eager is good. I’d rather hire someone excited to work for me than someone who thinks they are settling by accepting my job offer. I suppose you want to avoid “desperate”, but don’t be afraid to show a bit of enthusiasm.

(And we have strictly imposed salary bands. I’m offering you the same money either way. Maybe that’s not always true, but it is for me.)

8

Agree with the above. Eager is good. Too eager not so good, but better than not eager.

The first confirmation is optional. The second, to me, is required. Just because a message is sent, doesn’t mean the message was received.

9

Ditto.

10

I like a good "regards, " :wink:

11

So here’s the thing. HR or a hiring manager isn’t really evaluating or analyzing your communication patterns. What you are trying to do is establish a connection. And the way you do that is with a series of “touches”. Sort of like sales. There is an old maxim that it takes something like ten or so “touches” to close a sale.

So in other words, responding back to confirm an appointment or receipt of information provides justification for you to make another “touch” with the hiring manager or HR person.

Also keep in mind that the HR or hiring manager person is probably pretty busy. So it doesn’t hurt to have you reach out to them and remind them you are still there. They talk to a lot of people so it’s not out of the question that they see your email and are like “oh shit! I forgot we were talking to this guy who has experience fixing this very thing we are trying to solve!”

12

Well in my hiring for tech medical device development I certainly am evaluating a person’s communication skills and patterns.

Most certainly.

But I think I understand what you mean. But I most certainly do evaluate that.

Added — how a person communicates during the hiring process, especially during the process when they think they are dealing with ‘only HR’, reveals much about who they are. If they are dismissive and condescending to HR, they’ll be dismissive and condescending on the job, more likely stop to any subordinates or ‘lower ranking’ people.

13

Thanks for the insight, folks. Sometimes with these email chains it can feel almost like being a teenager on the phone with a crush. “No, you hang up first. No, you hang up first!”

14

Yeah Johnny. Just don’t come across as desperate. And the line between desperate and eager can be thin.

Eager: “if I haven’t heard from you in x days/weeks, can I follow up with you”? And then be sure to wait those x days/weeks before following up. Asking the question is also nicely assertive.

Desperate is not waiting before following up.

15

QFT.

Another saying from my retired HR executive mother: the “little people” can sink you even faster than the “big people.”

IOW: don’t do what John Bolton (et al) so famously does: kiss up and kick down.

16

Oh sure, following up is its own quagmire. I was mostly cogitating on these back 'n forth strings composed of 80% niceties and 20% information.

17

I do, too. But I’m not judging them by a very stringent standard. I’ve forgiven people who misspelled my name. (It’s unusual, and autocorrect can do that.)

18

Oh of course. I meant no one is going to look at emails with that sort of arbitrary pedantic scrutiny. You want to err on the side of being a bit more communicative and of course always be polite and respectful.

Why would someone be condescending and dismissive to HR? Frequently I’ve found the HR person to be a strong advocate for me during the process and a valuable source of guidance for when I meet with the hiring managers.