Get Your Emailed Resume Noticed

We often email resumes in response to a job posting or send our resume to a networking contact, recruiter, or hiring manager.  That can be very effective, or it can be a waste of time and energy, depending on how well it is done and how good a fit the resume is for the opportunity.

Often people seem to assume that the person receiving the email has only one job posting open or will intuitively understand which job is being applied for. I’ve often seen email messages with subjects like: “Resume attached” “Your job posting” “Applying for your job” “Assistant job” and even plain old “Attached.”

Too often those subject links can make the message look like spam or, worse, a malware-laden message, and may be deleted. Certainly they are often ignored because they put the burden on the recipient for figuring out why the message was sent and what it is about.

Unless someone applies for a job on a job board, most resumes are sent via email, and they end up sitting in someone’s INBOX or in an email folder somewhere on their computer.  Sometimes they are read immediately.  Often, they sit in that inbox or folder, possibly for days or weeks.

How does your message with your resume get found and read eventually?  The email software’s search function is frequently the tool used to sift through messages to find the appropriate applicants and resumes.

Few of us think about the email search function when we send our resumes (or other email) messages.

• To be effective, our messages must be read.
• To be read, our messages must first be found and then are determined to be relevant.
• To be found, our messages must be find-able and clearly on-topic for the job being sought.