Like it or not, we are moving into a time when email is the norm, and older methods of communication are fading into the background.  After all, why play phone tag when you can send an email message that will be there 24 hours a day, waiting for its recipient to read it and instantaneously send you a reply?

As in any area of life, the Internet has its own set of "manners" or acceptable behavior.  When you communicate with prospective employers via email, your message is that employer's first impression of you.   How important, then, that your message puts your "best foot forward"!

Of course, as in any written correspondence, you want to be sure your message is well-worded and concise with no typos.  A few other good rules of thumb are:

Be sure the subject line is completed; otherwise, the prospective employer may think it is SPAM (unsolicited advertising so prevalent on the 'Net) and might not open it.   Use a clear and concise description of the subject of your email.  Consult your coach for content if you're not sure what to put in the subject line.

It is important to remember that 90 percent of network communications are limited to ASCII characters---the basic alphabet and number characters and only the most basic punctuation.  Most of the time any other characteristics—such as bold or italic—do not translate into your recipient's message.   It's also a good idea to stay away from fancy fonts, even if you have the capability to use them, since the recipient's computer can only display the fonts that are available on his/her computer.  This is why most email programs use a Courier font or an Arial (sans serif) font.  Otherwise, who knows how your message will appear!

It's a good idea to limit your line length to 60-80 characters; this prevents your lines from breaking in odd places.  We've all seen this happen!

NEVER TYPE IN ALL CAPS, LIKE THIS.  This is generally understood in the online community as SHOUTING, and is considered generally rude.  You may use all caps IN MODERATION, to show emphasis.

Even though email is generally less formal than any other type of correspondence (some folks don't use any capitalization or punctuation in their email), you still want to present yourself to a prospective employer in a slightly more formal manner.  Use an appropriate salutation and closing for your email.  Be sure to proofread your message a couple of times to be sure spelling, grammar and capitalization are correct.  If your email program has a spell-check, by all means use it.  If it doesn't, you can always compose your message in Word and spell-check it before pasting it into your email.  But remember to read-proof as well; there are some errors that are not picked up on spell-check, such as leaving the "r" off "your"!

MIME format—whenever you attach more than one file to an email, it can be converted to MIME format (especially if your recipient has AOL) and can only be downloaded by the recipient if he/she has a "converter" program.  It is an excellent idea to avoid this problem by doing one of two things:  1) you can combine all documents (resume, project summaries, issues and concerns) into one "package" document.  Use the Insert--> File command on the toolbar to place each document, in order, at the bottom of the document. Or 2) you may use WinZip (or any other zip utility) to package all the documents together and send them as a zip file.  This may not be the best option, either, since the recipient will receive a warning that the file contains executable code which may contain a virus and offers the option to abort the download.