Why your emails are getting no responses from the companies you apply to

Did you write an email to some person in the industry and not get a response? Or maybe you got a one-liner that essentially rejected you politely? Don't be surprised.

If you write emails like the emails I receive from students, it is no wonder that you get rejected. Read this article to understand what you can fix.

Here are a list of common problems that you should avoid:

• u rite usng sms english: If u rite email lyk dis, I wl reject widout reading it. Seriously. It might seem like a little thing to you, and you don't understand why the industry folks are being such stuffed shirts about a stupid thing like English, but a large fraction of the people in companies receiving your mail are going to assume that if you cannot write a short email in good English with correct spelling and grammar, you are no good. Note: if you studied in a regional language, and are not comfortable with English, get a friend to compose the email for you. Talking in broken English in the in-person interview is not as bad as sending a badly written email. The fact that you know your weakness (English) and did something to overcome it will be a positive in my eyes.
• Email sent to a large number of unrelated people: If your application has been CC-ed to someone from Persistent, and Infosys, and ReliScore.com and MakeMyTrip and a whole bunch of other companies, it will get rejected. This basically says that you have no particular interests of your own and any job/project will do, you are too lazy to even send separate mails to different companies, let alone customizing the text based on what the company is looking for. Your email should go to a specific person, and should contain information specific to his/her company to indicate that you have done some background checking and basically taken an effort - that will make your email stand out. And no, don't send it using "Bcc". We know about 'Bcc' and are smart enough to realize that a 'Bcc' mail is a bulk mail. In fact, the more busy executives in a company will often not read mails unless they are in the 'To' field (even 'Cc' is not good enough.)
• No subject, or uninformative subject: Unless the subject of your email is self-explanatory and well written, there is a good chance that your email will never get read. That's right, the recipient might never even read your email. Most senior people in industry get 100+ emails per day, and some get many more. Many of them don't even read all their email. So how do they decide which email to read and which to skip? By simply looking at the "From" and the "Subject" of the email in the inbox. Since you're a student, the recipient will never have heard of you, so the "From" field is useless. Hence, your only chance of being read is in having an interesting "Subject" line. Don't have something like "application" or "My resume". A better subject is "BE Project Sponsorship." Even better is something like "COEP students interested in doing Android BE Project with TapNTap."
• WRITING IN ALL CAPS: IF YOU WRITE LIKE THIS, IT'S AN INDICATION THAT YOU HAVE NOT BEEN ON THE INTERNET LONG ENOUGH, AND ARE JUST TOO UNDEREXPOSED. On the internet, all caps is like shouting and a sign of people extremely new to the internet. You don't want to be considered one of those. (and yes, those of you writing without any caps at all. you might think it is cool. i used to think it is cool when I was in 17. but in the long run, it is simply irritating. you are not e.e. cummings, so don't do it.)
• Incorrect spelings in your applocation: It is easy for spelling errors to creep into your email (i.e. cover letter) and your resume, but in today's world with spell-checks all over the place, allowing the spelling error to remain in the application is, in the eyes of most hiring managers, unforgivable.

Remember, there are 200,000 graduates coming out of India's colleges every year. And they're all sending resumes to companies for projects/jobs. How are you going to stand out?

The first step is a well crafted email with a clear, relevant subject line and an informative "cover letter," accompanied by a well-formatted, error-free resume.

There is of course much more you can do - in terms of actual work that will impress the recipient. Those tips are 'Coming Soon,' and to ensure that you get them subscribe to ReliScore. And/or like us on Facebook

Read also:

• The Economic Times agrees with this view. The people there are also complaining about 'unprofessional' email addresses like coolboysam@ prem4priti@. I personally don't have a problem with these, but maybe some people do. Yet another thing for you to keep in mind.