Part of managing your career is determining how you want others to perceive you and consistently presenting yourself in that light. It’s easy to think about personal branding for résumés and interview answers, but smaller details of your professional life should also match your personal brand.
Email signature files. An email signature file is appended to every single message you send out. For something so common, it is surprising how little time most people spend on crafting it well. Your company may require you to use a template in emails sent from company addresses, but there is sometimes room for creativity too.
Signature files should be succinct, offering only the most important information. This can include your full name, job title and organization, and contact information: address, phone number, email, and URL. Include social media handles if they’re relevant to your work. Consider supplying your pronouns.
A signature file should include no more than five lines, with one or two blank lines above them to set the signature apart from the body of the email message. Each line should be no more than about 70 characters long to prevent text wrapping (or about 50 if your messages will likely be read on a cell phone). Using tabs instead of spaces to create blank space may help your information line up as intended on different platforms.
If you manage multiple roles from a single email address, consider creating multiple signature files so that you can choose one that best matches your role in a specific conversation. A list of many disparate roles in a single signature file might confuse recipients. On a personal email account, your signature file might omit your corporate information.
With email, the simpler the better. Choose fonts and colors wisely, but realize that your choices may not be honored by the displaying system. If you choose to feature an image or logo, make sure to include alt text that will appear if the image fails to load. Test your signature by sending it to friends on a variety of platforms.
Email autoreplies. An autoreply is a message that is sent out automatically the first time someone emails you. One common purpose is to notify senders that you are going to be away from your email for an extended period. Autoreplies should be timely and useful and can be as long as needed to contain all the necessary information. Includes the dates you will be unavailable, when the recipient should expect a reply, and who to contact about specific issues in the meantime, along with that person’s contact information. If multiple people are covering your duties, detail who to contact for what.
Voicemail messages. Make sure your outgoing voicemail message is professional, clear, simple, and friendly. It should be no more than 20–30 s total, saying who you are and inviting the caller to leave their information so you can get back to them soon.
In the end, every message you send says something about you. Take the time to make sure all parts of each message say exactly what you want, and proofread, proofread, proofread. Then revisit your automated messages regularly to make sure they remain appropriate. And let them work for you.
Get involved in the discussion. The ACS Career Tips column is published monthly in C&EN. Send your comments and ideas for topics for future columns to careernavigator@acs.org.