6 Career-Killing Email Mistakes

By Miriam Salpeter

Email is a crucial communication tool, both at work and during job search. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to make a detrimental email mistake that has the potential to kill your career or bring your job search to a halt. Don't let these happen to you:

1. Unprofessional email address.

No, [e-mail] is not an appropriate address to use to send your job search correspondence. In fact, it's probably dead-ending possible opportunities. Create a professional email account name for all professional interactions online. If possible, choose some version of your name, or your name combined with your professional title. For example, [e-mail]

2. Sending emails with too many links.

This isn't dangerous until you need to make sure your crucial email lands in someone's "in" box. Be aware: some companies have very sensitive spam filters that may identify emails with a lot of links as trash. If you use a fancy email signature including lots of links, it's not a bad idea to delete or simplify it when you apply for a job or when you try to touch base with a new networking contact. When your intended recipient doesn't receive your message, it certainly puts a damper on future communication!

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3. Failing to respond.

How often do you check email from your phone and fail to file or mark it as an item to revisit later? In a busy day, it's too easy to see an email (even an important one) and plan to respond later, but forget to follow up. If you have a tendency to forget details and receive a lot of correspondence, make sure you review the your "seen" email at the end of each day so nothing gets lost.

4. Forgetting the attachment.

This doesn't sound like a fatal error, but when you've just applied for a job indicating how detail oriented you are, but forgot to attach your resume, it could be the end of the line for your application. Consider attaching documents before you compose the email so you'll never send an email saying, "see attachment" without the accompanying documentation. Today, applicants don't have to confess their sexual tendencies or religious beliefs to Target Corporation. They just have to apply online, go through a phone screening and an online assessment, and then another interview or two, or five -- if you're going for a management position.

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