TIPS: Sending emails in corporate America

This semester, I'm the teaching assistant for a course I took in 2011 called Management of Strategic Communication. One of the memorable class periods is a lecture called Writing for Business, where our professor gives us tips on business correspondence and writing points-of-view in a company setting.

The tips include using headlines, subheads and bullet points to break off important information, writing brief emails and using subject lines to your advantage. This LinkedIn article that I found immediately after the lecture actually reflects a lot of the points we learn.

After running a Career Fair last week and reaching out to numerous recruiters at companies across the country, we developed the science of sending email to someone working in corporate America. Here are some of the tips I've learned in my correspondence with working professionals.

1. Be mindful of the time of day you send an email.
With the Career Fair, I informed liaisons that they were only allowed to send correspondence between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, or else the message would get lost in the receiver's inbox. A lot of office people receive daily wrap-up emails, so the message you thought of at midnight might sink to the bottom of the pile because of morning news. We always had luck catching people during business hours, sometimes even receiving a response in minutes as the person cleans out his or her email.

2. Send it at a good time of the week.
No one answers a work phone call or email you send them on a Friday. If you send something on a Monday, it might get answered by the end of the week but gets drowned into a to do list. I try sending all messages on Tuesdays when people are at their desk and on their game.

3. Tell the addressee how you got their email address if they don't know you.
With large companies making everyone's email address their first and last name, it's not difficult to figure out how to get in touch with someone at a company. But if you want to be on their urgent list and receive a response, you have to give them a connection as to why they should respond to you. I've made a point to always include what my relation is to the addressee to guarantee a response and not seem creepy. If you get their name from someone else, say that. If you found them on LinkedIn and have a mutual friend, say that. Establishing the connection is important!