The blog for all things Apochromatik.
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Eight Easy Ways to Irritate Email Recipients
Studies show that the average professional spends one-third of their work day on work email. That means that email can have a big impact on your career. Read on for eight common—and easily correctable—mistakes you may be making with your emails.
Emails that are too long.
Someone once told me emails should be short enough to fit on an iPhone screen. That isn't always possible or desirable, but it’s helpful to keep that view in mind. (Of course the people who insist on three line emails are often the same people who then complain about emails that sound curt, so take this with a grain of salt.) Longer emails—especially if you aren't using headers or space to break things up—make people more likely to skim and miss the content you've provided. Or they may decide to come back to your email and then forget to do so. And worse than not reading the email, when your emails are too long, people assume you aren't focused.
3 Steps to a Highly Effective Reference List
You’ve come up with a thoughtful job search plan. You’ve prepared your resume and proofread it until your eyes watered. Your cover letter is perfectly crafted. (By the way, if these don’t apply to you, we can help. . . .) Now it’s time to put together your list of references. That will be easy, right? Just type up some names, phone numbers, and email addresses and Voila! You’re done with your application! Right? Wrong.
References don’t need to take long, but they do need to be carefully put together. The good news: so many people just throw their reference list together, that this is an area where it’s easy to stand out. Just follow three steps to improve your reference list.
Everything You Need to Know to Succeed in Your Career I Learned at Noah's Ark Waterpark
If you find yourself in a job that feels unrelated to your long-term career goals, look for the lessons and skills you can take from it that will carry you far in the rest of your career. After graduating from some of the best universities in the country, and being trained by some impressive-sounding employers, I can honestly say that everything that has made me successful I learned from spending my summers working at a waterpark. More specifically, from Turk Waterman. Turk passed away a few months ago, which has caused me to reflect on the lessons I learned from this wonderful mentor, long before I knew what a mentor was.
5 Tips to Ace Your Video Interview
You probably remember the hilarity and chaos that ensued when a professor being interviewed live by the BBC was interrupted by his kids.
While that situation was extreme, it’s a good reminder that the best-laid plans for video conversations can sometimes go hilariously awry. Here are five tips to help you ace your video interview – and avoid becoming a meme in the process.
Need more time? Find more time every week!
OK, so that title isn’t 100% accurate – you have 10,080 minutes per week whether you follow our advice to track your time or not. But hear me out.
You may already need to keep track of your time for your job, maybe even in 6-minute increments. But what about when you aren’t at work? And what about all those things you do during the day that don’t get recorded? Tracking all of your time for a week can help you figure out where your 1,440 minutes per day, 168 hours per week are going. Armed with that knowledge, you can evaluate whether you’re investing your time the way you want to and the way you need to in order to achieve your goals. Later, I’ll explain just how to do this. But first, why it’s worth the effort.