It's not just an email, bruh

A random introduction

Up until quite recently my blog has been a collection of university-related tips and advice as well as things I've learned along the way. Now that I have left the academic life behind for now (two degrees obtained, booyah!), I was faced with somewhat of a conundrum. Do I use the five years of university experience to continue to write posts about all things college related? Or do I pack my blog up and take it with me on this new chapter in my life and adapt it along the way?

I have decided to go with the latter.

So, having been in the real life working world for a little over a year now, I have learned some pretty tough lessons. And if one person can learn from my mistakes, then I'm happy.

The stuff you actually care about

Something you'll need to know stuff about quite early on in the working world
is email etiquette. Email has become the most common form of communication in pretty much all fields of work, so it's best you refine your emailing abilities as quickly as possible. Here are my top tips:

• Always include a subject. Emails without a subject line are far less likely to be opened, let alone read. Try to summarise the topic of your email into a maximum of five words. 
• Always greet the person, even if you've just seen them. Just jumping right into the content of your email isn't really professional.
• Sign off properly. Ask your IT or graphic design department to create an email signature for you to include at the end of your emails. Make sure that you end the message properly using words such as 'kind regards' followed by your full name, your position and the name of the company that you work for.
• Keep it as succinct as you can. Long paragraphs are difficult to read on a screen - especially if it's a small one, you never know when someone might open your email on their phone - and the reader can get bored or distracted pretty easily. Rather use short paragraphs broken up into bite-size chunks.
• Learn how to spell. I cannot emphasise this one enough. Even the most perfect people in the world make spelling mistake, don't think you can get away without running a spell check. You can even do a brief read-over if you're sending a particularly important email.
• Use full sentences and proper punctuation. Text-speak is not appropriate at all.
• If you're anything like me, you'll tell recipients that there are things attached to an email but you don't attach the darn things! A good habit to get into is to attach the item/s to the email before you actually write it.