CV Sending Etiquette

The E-mail that has your CV in it, is your link to the prospective employer, so, it should be as personalized, personal, and has human touch as high as possible, to be distinguished from other hundreds of applicants

Etiquette of sending an e-mail starts with

1)      You should only send an e-mail to the shown e-mails only,

Employers won’t give you an interview if you are just sending your CV for a lot of companies at the same time, it’s considered unprofessional, and also demeaning, just like when you are in an interview and you don’t say that you already have been interviewed or applied in any other company

2)      You should be as personalized as possible, so if you know the name of the contact person you should address him personally (ex. Dear Mr. John Smith – HR Manager – XYZ company )

3)      Subject line: it should state which position exactly are you applying for, MOST of employers don’t consider CVs without a Subject line in it. So, when an employer or a recruitment company asks candidates to mention the position they are applying for in the subject line that means, they will NEVER consider e-mails without subject line, it will consume a lot of their time, and they are not up to the challenge to do so

a.       Try not to mention more than one position in the subject line, it shows the employer that you don’t know what position are you exactly applying for

4)      Personal, and Human Touch : as I mentioned earlier, if you know the contact person for the e-mail you are sending, you should address him personally, if not, try to make it like the following
(ex. Dear HR Manager – XYZ company ), If you don’t know the name of the company, try to check the website in the e-mail you are sending to, if it’s still unknown, then address him as
(Ex. Dear HR Manager )

5)      Never forward the e-mail you sent earlier for a previous employer, you have to compose a new e-mail for each employer (If you just forwarded it to each employer, Your CV will be neglected)

6)      It’s called an E-MAIL, so you shouldn’t just send a blank e-mail, there should be a Cover Letter - its preferred to use the blank page of the e-mail as the Cover Letter - ( will be discussed later on in a separate article ) that shows

a.       Where you saw the job ad, if it was posted

b.      What are your skills, and experience to fulfill the needs of their requirements

c.       Asking for the nearest opportunity for an interview

d.      Wishing to hear from them soon

7)      E-mail should be sent from the Job Seeker himself, some people send CVs for their brothers, sisters, fiancées, husbands .. etc. .As we said earlier, it should be personalized e-mail

8)      Don’t attach too many files unless required, some people attach a scanned copy of their Certifications along with their CVs, which is actually burdening the employer to look at all or just skipping the whole thing

9)      Name your CV after your name. when employers remark an e-mail, they actually need it to be in your name, so that when they click download, they don’t have to modify the name of the file, because actually, they have a lot of files to download and check.

10)   Try to follow up with your resume status, here comes the role of networking which will be discussed in a separate article later, you have to search the person you sent your CV to through social networking websites, like : Linkedin, which is the professional social networking website, and see whether they would like to know any more details, or need any further documentations.

•       Try to remove the e-mails of employers when you register in websites that import your Contacts from your e-mail, it is really annoying for employers to get an invitation to join FB, Youtube, ... etc.

• NEVER Copy and paste your CV in the e-mail, just attach it, so that it would be easy for employers to print it easily

These hints if applied, my friends, it guarantees you are totally distinguished, now, it comes for your CV to present you in the excellent way that you can get the Interview .

Best of luck for all ;)