Etiquette

1. Myths
about
Job Interviews

2. Write it right!

3. Emails for what ?
• Convey information
• Request for information
• Publish schedules
• Status updates
• Share files
• Escalations
• Memos/reminders
• Follow up
• Acknowledgements

4. Who would receive my mails?
• Colleagues
• Team members
• Supervisor(s)
• Management
• Client/Customer

5. In the shoes of a recipient
What does the reader look for:
Subject
Greeting
Clear and complete information
Simple, concise & professional language
Back references
Confidentiality (sensitive information)
Consistency
Contacts to revert

6. How do I Write it right?
Thumb rules of email writing:
Background – Keep it simple
Font - No Caps
Color – Black or Blue
Subject – Meaningful & Specific to purpose
Concise - to the point
Formal Language - Active voice, No SMS language, Gender neutral
Spelling, grammar & punctuation – Be sure what you are writing
Abbreviations – Use them judiciously
Emoticons – Not recommended

7. Thumb rules continue…
Email thread – Highly recommended
To, CC & BCC – Be sure before including someone
Reply to all & forward options – Know when and how to use
High Priority – Only if really urgent
Attachments – Authorized & zipped and not to be forgotten!
Signature – Better to be there
Disclaimer – As per company’s policy
Reviewing helps – Avoid embarrassment
Group Mails – Double check addresses & content
Spam & Chain mails – Say good bye to them!
Acknowledgement – Do that for sure

8. Remember while writing professional emails
Set up your Mail Signature with Necessary details
Set up your "Out of Office" or “Out of Campus” when you are off.
Technical Analysis Mails to Show your Experience not Inexperience
Send Tasks Plan and Status Mails to keep all Stakeholders Informed
Respond your Mails in One Business Day
Review the CC and To list
Discourage large attachments. Zip it up.

9. Avoid Last minute surprises
Always provide ETA and Workaround for blockers
Minute the meeting you attend
Avoid using SMS kind of Language in Business Mails.
Always try and make the mail positive
When you are upset with a mail try not to reply immediately. Give some time ,
review, try to remove emotions and send later.
Get Your Communication Reviewed from Your Team Leads
Remember while writing professional emails

10. Set up your Mail Signature with
necessary details
• Advantage
 A person who has not seen you sitting
remotely should clearly get the
information from your signature.
• Disadvantage
 Without proper signature, it will be
very difficult to identity the people,
and working application.
 People may not be able to contact
you in urgent situation.
• Required Format
 Name
 Role
 Designation ( Like EFMS-Development,
EFMS-Test, EFMS-System Engineering )
 Sub team that you belong to ( Like EFMS-
MS or EFMS-MIS or EFMS-TP or EFMS-
Child Apps )
 IBM location with Address
 Seat No
 Contact Numbers ( External call in Number
with Country and area code, Mobile
Number )
 Internet E-mail ( @in.ibm.com )

11. Good Example-Email Signature
Example:
Thanks and regards,
Prakash Kohli
AT&T Account, ELTP Mgmt,
IBM India Private Limited,
Manyata Embassy Business Park,
D2-Block,3rd Floor-MD2-3A-150
Outer Ring Road, NagawaraRachenahalli
Bangalore-560045
Contact:
Office: +91-80-402-56299
Mobile: +91-98458 85384
TieLine : 92 -21299
E-Mail: prakashk@in.ibm.com

12. Set up your "Out of Office”- Message reply
• Advantage
 The out of office message alerts the
sender to look explore for alternatives
• Disadvantage
 It may create a situation, when some
thing is urgently required, and no one is
aware about that.
 It will break the communication series.
• Required Format
 Starting when you will be out of office
 When will you return back
 For the current activities that you are
involved in who is the backup with Email
address and Contact no of backup ( #
Backup should be aware of the same and
it should be in consultation with your
manager )
 And you escalation path ( manager e-mail
address and contact no)

13. “Out of Office” Message reply
I will be out of office starting from 29th August evening India/Morning EST and will be back on
2nd Sept. During this period I will not have access to my E-mails. Please contact the following
backups during my absence.
PA911:
Swaraj Piratla ( spiratla@in.ibm.com )
Extn: +9180-401-98111
PB494 :
Vandana Kancharla( vkancharla@in.ibm.com )
Extn: +9180-402-76112
In case you need additional support please contact my manager
Jaisurya Joseph( jsurya@in.ibm.com )
Extn: +9180-403-45109, Mob: +919880000288

14. Technical Analysis Mails
• Advantage
 It will provide the clear picture of problem
 It will reflect your work done
 It will reflect your Experience
• Disadvantage
 It will reflect your work inexperience
 It may confuse the second party to
approach to problem
 It will not reflect your effort to analyze and
solving the problem
• Required Format
 Problem Description
 Your conclusion
 Snippet of log file which aided the conclusion
 Snippet of SQL Queries which aided the
conclusion
 Snippet of Requirements which aided the
conclusion

15. Mails to keep all Stakeholders Informed
• Advantage
 Easy to trace your progress
• Disadvantage
 You may not able to complete your task
on time
 Work may get stuck in mid, because of
improper analysis of risk and issues.
• Required Format
 Your expected timeline of completion of
the activity
 Date associated with the timeline
 What do you perceive as Risks and
Issues for the same?..

16. Respond your Mails in One Business Day
• Advantage
 It will reduce the time zone problem
 Helped to resolve the problem with Time
Line
 Second party can approach further in
their respective Time zone
• Disadvantage
 It may delay the completion time.
 You may not able to complete the task on
time line.
• Tips
 For mails which is to keep IBM US
informed or requesting there help you
should be sending the mails by India
Lunch time. This will make sure that it
gets the US SME attention by there start
of business.

17. Discourage large attachments
• Advantage
 Reduce the unnecessary traffic
 Reduce mail server storage issue
• Disadvantages
 Recipients will get frustrated, if he is
accessing the network from home via a
dialup or weak connection
 Dialup and Home connectivity users will
be blocked
 The recipients will face lot of issues if you
have large unzipped attachments in the
mails
 It will create mail server storage issue
• Tips
 Always use WinZip/Pkzip to zip the large
documents that you have attached

18. Avoid Last Minute Surprises
• Advantage
 Mentors appreciate genuine concerns of
delay however not at the last minute.
• Disadvantage
 Frequent requests for delay may be
interpreted as the capability issue of the
candidate
• Tips
 Always keep your lead/manager/mentor
informed either by phone or by a mail if
the work product is getting delayed with a
valid reason for the same. Don’t come
back on the last minute

19. Always provide Workaround for blockers
• Advantage
 Easy to trace the current status
 It will reduce the escalation
 Workaround will reflect the required time
to solve
• Disadvantage
 It will be difficult to get current status
 It will show your inexperience
• Tips
 Current status ( Analysis/ Identified the
problem/Fixing In progress/Testing )
 Estimated time of Availability
 Workaround for the problem
 ETA needs to be reviewed and approved
by your senior team members

20. Avoid SMS in Business Communication
• Advantage
 You tend to have a good start with the
Professional/Mentor with whom you are
interlocking
• Disadvantage
 If not followed can be misinterpreted as a
communication capability issue of the
candidate
• Tips
 Written Communication can tell a lot
about the person who is sending it.
 Use formal language, follow case
sensitivity and proper language
constructs like sentences and
punctuations.

21. Minute the meeting you attend
• Advantage
 Reflect the purpose of meeting
 Reduce the inconvenient because of
Date, Time and Location
 Provide the clarity for Participants
required
 Trace out the Absentees
• Disadvantage
 Participant will not able to get the
importance of meeting
 It may cause unnecessary inconvenient,
because the lack of date, time and
location information
• Tips
The Minutes of the Meeting mail should
have
 Name of the Meeting
 Participants
 Absentees
 Date and Time
 Location
 Contents of the meeting also needs to be
captured. Which may be decision,
comments and Action items

22. Pause and Respond
• Advantage
 You may able to send a mail, without
any emotional aspect
• Disadvantage
 Your business relationship may get
effected because of your mail
• Tips
 When you are upset with a mail try not to
reply immediately
 You can write the reply and keep it in
draft
 Give some time , review it yourself and
try and remove the emotions and send
later.

23. Positive Mail
• Advantage
 It will show your Experience
 It will give a good relationship with
customer/other person
 Providing the workaround will give a right
path to approach further
• Disadvantage
 It will show your inexperience
 You may loose the support of your
customer/other person
• Tips
 Always try and make the mail positive
 Try to see the problem in
customer's/other person's perspective
and reply on the do ability of a problem
and not stating that it is not doable
 Think of the workaround that may
remove the hindrance of the customer

24. Any Questions…?

25. Email Correcting Task
From: Priya [mailto:priya@company.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2007 5:24 PM
To: Rajesh; Samuel; Preethi
Cc: ceo@company.com
Subject: leave application -----Priya
haii sir,
i am requesting you to grant me a leave from 29-03-2010 to 04-04-
2010.because my sister marriage is there i need to go bit early because my
mother is having health problem,so i was the only person to look after the
things.please issue me the leave during that period.
thanking you.

26. From: Durga T [durga.t@company.com]
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2008 6:49 PM
To: Team Lead; hr@company.com
Subject: haiii
haiii sir,
here i am unable to log out in the hrms. some problem is there.so i am
reporting my logout time is 6:52 pm on 22/03/10.
thanking you.

27. From: Rakesh[mailto:rakesh@vendor.com]
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2009 3:38 PM
To: client@clientcompany.com
Cc: finance@company.com
Subject: Re: Shortlisted candidates
hi,
pls mail us in the new id, support@company.com
thanks for the late news, we will await the payment, else will do the follow
up with ur finance dept.
Awaiting more opportunities from ur end.
Sincerely,
Rakesh

28. From: Rakesh[mailto:rakesh@vendor.com]
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2009 3:38 PM
To: client@clientcompany.com
Cc: finance@company.com
Subject: Re: Shortlisted candidates
hi,
pls mail us in the new id, support@company.com
thanks for the late news, we will await the payment, else will do the follow
up with ur finance dept.
Awaiting more opportunities from ur end.
Sincerely,
Rakesh

29. From: Deepa [mailto:deepa@company.com]
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2008 6:56 PM
To: teammember@company.com
Cc: hr@company.com
Subject: ur deputation to Andaman & Nicobar Islands
hi,
as discussed, i hv takn up ur matter wit d head ofice, who wer agreed 2 considr ur
case 2 b bac in Che 2 continu ur asignment. However, dis cn b done 1ly aftr 1
mnth, due to task alocation alrdy done.
Req, pls try to settl down in Andamans, and c whther u hv any issues 2 continue there
atleast 4 3 months.
incase u wan 2 cum bac to Che by end of 1 month, v wil do d needful.
Sincerely,
Deepa

30. Happy eMailing!