On the same day I received e-mails from two men, Farik and Dave, in different organizations. While both men are about the same age and in a similar place in their careers, their e-mails were very different.

Dave’s e-mail concerned me because it had these issues:

• The salutation was “hey.”
• There were two misspellings.
• The tone, while positive and pleasant, had a fair amount of slang.
• The subject line didn’t reflect the topic of the message.

Farik’s e-mail was professional and had none of those problems. When I complimented Farik, he said that his mentor took him aside after a snafu and shared with him the importance of e-mail etiquette. Those lessons came at a cost during his internship, but had made a lasting impression. Farik was glad he learned the e-mail lesson early in his career!

And the most important email rule of all is to “never write anything in an e-mail that you wouldn’t say directly to the person in a face-to-face conversation.” In fact, remember that whatever you write can, and likely will, be passed throughout the office and potentially to a news source.

Click here for more tips on e-mail etiquette

I have written about this topic before, and it’s as important as ever:  

Last Week You Were Still There