Be professional

Posted on: 07 July 2011

I regularly receive phonecalls or e-mails from people who may have a job for me. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate it if people contact me. It must mean that they like my work or have heared positive things about me. Still most of these messages are left unreplied. The first point of contact can make or break our future relation. You can look at it as a businesscard. If it's not good? Than there's no deal. Here's my top 5 list of reasons not to write or call back.

1. Misspelling of my name. My e-mail address is jakob@jakobtolsma.nl or info@jakobtolsma.nl. It even spells the name out for you! How can you still misspell my name and how am I suppose to take you seriously if you (obviously) don't check your message before contacting me? So check the message and while you're at it... also check for capitols and punctuation.

2. Who are you? I always like some background on the companies or people that offer me stuff. Most of the time the messages just ask me to write back or call back if I'm interested. How can I be interested in a company I don't even know? So... Why should I take time to get back to you?

3. E-mails from a hotmail, gmail, yahoo account.
Come on people... it's the year 2011. Everyone has the possibility to get domain name. With this domain name comes the possibility to create e-mail addresses. If you write to me, saying you're a company.. than why mail me from a hotmail account? Be professional, use an e-mail address that corresponds with your own domain name.

4. "I have some jobs you might be interested in"... Well what are you waiting for? Tell me. What kind of jobs? You have already taken the time to send me a message. Why not send me the whole thing. And how am I to give you an indication of the price for a project, if I don't know what the project is? This can save us both a lot of time.

5. "I found your address somewhere on the internet." Yay, the webcrawlers are doing there job. Nice to know you found me. It might be nice to tell me where you found me. You could be reacting to a message from years ago.

So.. if you are looking for someone that you want to hire. Take the things above into consideration. It just makes a message that more professional. This of course works both ways. If you apply for a job. Be professional. Check your message before you send it out.