The Hiring Process

Preparing employment communications is an integral part of the searching and hiring process for every firm and organization. The basics of hiring ultimately go down to the resume and the interview. The resume must be pristine if it is to be competitive. While employers look through dozens of applications they cannot afford to spend their time looking at anything else besides the best. The resume must be formatted correctly with attractive details that promote the employee. This is self marketing. Every prospective employee must look attractive as possible. The formatting, grammar, spelling, and spacing must be perfect. The content should be revised and updated. The newest information should be at the top along with other work experience. In general, it should only have things past high school. An attractive resume will lead to an well sought after interview. During the interview prospective employees must dress conservatively and professionally. They must have a strong appearance and give a strong impression. The interviewee must be ready to answer quickly and decisively. Some questions will be close ended while others will be open ended. The interviewee must be ready to explain how he or she has solved previous problems in the work place. The actions will speak louder than words. In this case, the employer wants to know what the employee can do, not necessarily what the employee knows. A successful interview will be a wholesome experience that will allow the employee to network. As such, the prospective employee should write a follow up letter to offer thanks. Cordial relationships and goodwill will always provide strong ties in the world of business.

The Importance of Business Correspondence.

Writing in Business naturally requires us to correspond to a variety of people through different platforms. Each vertical has its own crucial importance. Even though there are numerous methods of writing each message should maintain similar features. We strive to be persuasive. We strive to be effective. We strive to be clear. And sometimes repetition and other techniques are important as well. As we have seen before, the persuasiveness of writing is tied to its logos, pathos, or ethos. The logos is the logic of the argument. It will focus on causes and effects, statistics, and other reason based arguments. The pathos dwells on our emotions. It tries to stir up our pride, enhance our humor, connect with our sentimentality, or ignite our fears. The pathos of an argument will often sway people who would not otherwise be drawn to a black and white logic based argument.  Finally we have the ethos, or ethical nature of an argument. Are we calling others to do something morally right? Are we drawing upon some moral authority? These features should be used while writing emails, memos, and other letters. Are we networking? How are we to make an emotional appeal to our customers? How are we supposed to convince our superiors? Does the memo draw upon plain statistics or does it also motivate us to action? We need to be people writing these documents with thoughts and passions. Nevertheless, we must show that we are logical beings who can effectively get things done. To be effective we need to make sure we use a variety of these methods.

Editing is Elementary Watson

I could just picture Sherlock Homes explaining to Watson how vital it is to revise and edit your documents. Even the writing masters don't just produce a perfect creation on the first shot. Writing is an excruciating process. It is a skill that takes a lifetime to develop. Sequoia trees don't just become giants over night. Sequoia's take centuries to become those sages of the forest. Growth in writing needs the right nutrients to develop; the right design, a coherent organization, an appealing content, and grammatically correct sentences. The previous posting discussed the design of a document in detail. It is necessary we have the right headings, art, visuals, typography, and spacing. The organization also needs the right opening followed by a clear agenda. Then we need a body and closing that reflects that particular agenda. Afterward we examine the content. We must ask ourselves if it is clear, complete, correct, and compelling. If this is already been thoroughly examined we can focus on the paragraphs. We focus on the organization, coherence, length, unity, and development or the paragraph. Finally we must review the sentences and the sentence structures contained in the document. It is clear that revising can be a tedious process with all of these necessary steps. But the value of it far exceeds the work involved. Compelling documents will launch your career to new heights and places. You might even learn to be more impressive than Sherlock himself.

Enhance Every Option

If you want to be successful in management communications you must enhance your appeal. We need our documents to look attractive. Frumpy qualities do not belong in the board room. Boring features must be minimized. We must play to our captivating strengths and allow our receivers to be visually attached. In a certain Sponge-bob Square-pants cartoon episode, Sponge-bob, decides to visit his grandmothers house. He claims when he visits he is treated like a baby and pleads to his grandmother that he is treated like an adult. When he returns with his friend Patrick, his grandmother gives all this grandmotherly care to his friend Patrick while Sponge-bob is treated more distantly. Instead of reading him a story she gives him a 5,000 page textbook about mitochondria in males that doesn't even contain pictures or info-graphics. Each page appears to be incredibly dense (potentially 1,000 words per page and no margins/spacing). No one could ever read such a book. The only person that probably ever did was the author who spent 20 years writing it (keep in mind this isn't even real). The point of the matter is that we can't have documents look boring. We need spacing to attract and to guide our readers. We need charts that are not only easy to read but also visually stimulating. We need headings to introduce our readers to the content. We need tables to more effectively inform our audience. Spacing and graphics are important. Enhance every option. It is necessary we attempt to make every point more visually appealing to the audience. This will captivate our audience and allow them to maintain more information. Be attractive in management communications! We need headings, art, typography, and spacing. And please make sure never to make a boring document like that ginormous black and white textbook in Sponge-bob.

Composition of the Written Word

In previous posts I have discussed the importance of communicating effectively and coherently in business settings. I am hoping that you are starting to see a trend here. Everyday we are trying to get messages across to people. We try to shape people, organizations, and even industries. In the previous post I discussed the importance of organization. Currently I want to dive further and explain the principle of clarifying the purpose. It may seem like I am starting to pound a drum, but it is imperative we make our messages clear and concise. We must follow an appropriate pattern and strengthen our content. he message should contain an opening, an agenda, a body, and a closing feature. Standardization results in messages more easily being understood. And in order to be understood we should write with power. We must avoid logical fallacies at all cost. It is quite frankly immature to have straw man or ad hominem arguments. Messages desperately need logical coherency and persuasive credibility to make a mark. The stronger the argument, the higher the chances of success. In order for the argument to have strength, the argument must be composed effectively. The word can be as powerful as a two-edged sword, but only when it is coherently organized.

Planning and Outlining Messages

Literacy pays. Literacy pays a lot. In the 21st century it is more important than ever that we are able to communicate effectively. And in order to communicate effectively everyone knows we must be organized. Organization has power. In the management setting, the pathos and the ethos of an argument can display results, but the real powerhouse is contained in the logos of an argument. The word is more powerful than a two-edged sword. And in order to polish and sharpen that sword we need organization. The purpose must be clarified. This means we are straightforward in explaining our message in the most concise way possible. The audience must be analyzed further. The goal is to utilize their thoughts and senses to agree to the overall message. To satisfy the logos, or logic, of the argument, we must have a very coherent outline. We can use a traditional bullet outline, a tree diagram, or even a mind map. The overall goal is to get the outline to become easy and enjoyable to read. It must capture the viewers interest and quickly unable to reader to deeply understand all of the thoughts, feelings, and conclusions of the writer. In order to also capture the readers emotions the message must be as positive as possible. Psychological strategies make a difference. If the reader feels comfortable and agrees with the message then they are far more likely to undertake a receptive action. Consequentially i