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So I hunted and saw some discussion in this thread but it died out a couple years ago.  My question to the MT crowd:

What's in your email signature?  Do you have multiple signatures?  Do you put credentials/certifications in your signature or not?

I've got 4 signatures in my email client that I use depending on the situation (quickie mail, internal formal, external formal, and generic departmental).  They range from "Thank you, Jared" to "full name, MBA; full contact info (internal phone, cell, pager, address, etc)".    I'll probably get tired of having MBA after my name after the newness wears off (graduated in June). Back when I was a technician, I had all of my IT certs in my sig, but I removed them upon becoming manager (I have them all hanging up in my office now).

Anandha's picture
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Follow corporate standard or

 

Anandha
 
Anandha Ponnampalam | [email protected] | +44 7826 911 xxx

 

 

Easy. Forget the long messy sig with roles and my favourite quote and colour etc..

Anandha

timrutter's picture

Mine is:

Name
Job Title
Project
Company | Country
Direct: +61 (0) X XXX XXXX | Internal: #XXX XXX
Mobile:  +61 (0) XXX XXX XXX | Email: [email protected]
www.mycompany.com/division
 
As for attachments like company logo JPG's, it's a pet peave of mine

melissas's picture

 Lucky me! Since I'm in marketing, I get to set the company standard :)

Our official signature structure is this:

Name (linked to email), title, Company
number | web address | street address | city, state zip 

You can't see the fancy fonts or colors, but we use Calibri in small caps size 8, for the first line and same font in sentence case for the second line. (Now can you tell I'm in  marketing that I care about these details?)

We did a lot of research on signatures before settling on this layout. Basically we found that long vertical signatures tended to be ignored. The general recommendation is

  1. no more than 6 lines or 1.5 inches),
  2. avoid attached images (linked images are ok, but sit squarely in that nice fat gray area)
  3. and whatever information you include, you want to make sure it is very easy for anyone getting your email to contact you which means to include your name, phone and email included at minimum.

I don't include my certifications because for my job most of the people I'm corresponding with don't care about my schooling, only how to contact me back. I also don't include my title, but that's a personal issue ... technically I'm "marketing assistant", but my job function is that of a manager. It's a long frustrating story, I'll spare you the details. If someone asks what my title is, I'll tell them straight up, but advertising my assistant status gives me more trouble than it's worth when I'm trying to get things done.

Then I have a small signature for internal emails. I notice that others don't tend to include their department or their phone number, but there's two Melissa's in the company and again, I wanted to make it very easy even for other staff to be able to contact me (and I hate having to look people up on the extension list)

Melissa
~ marketing, x552

 

asteriskrntt1's picture

Hi Jared

I wonder what your Disc profile is.  Are you perhaps a High C?

There is no one right answer.  Some of your audience wants the full package including certifications.  Some wonder why you put an email address in an email and think "does this person think I don't know how to use the reply function or retrieve an email address?".

Personally, I keep it simple, which is what all the senior execs I worked with did.  I don't have an extra 20 minutes a day to debate and decide what signature I need for what email.  Name, title, phone.  I set my replies and returns to my initials. 

Bob Smith

Product Manager, Advanced Widgets Line

866-555-1212

 

For replies and forwards,

BS (no snickering please)

 

TomW's picture
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Since communication is what the listener does, I ask "What do I want the recipient to get out of my signature?"

Since I want them to be able to contact me in whatecver way is convenient for them, I include my name and phone number, and my company-mandated title and company name. I don't include the email since they can respond using the "Respond" button (and I've seen enough people rolling their eyes at people who do include it that I thought it was seen as silly".

melissas's picture

Heh, I used to think that too ... until I got forwarded enough emails "Would you please contact person below". Outlook is notorious for listing a person's literal name in the "from" and not forwarding the email address. And half the time it's an informal email exchange where people aren't including their full business signature in the thread so then I have to go back to the person who forwarded it and ask them how I contact the person below ... So anyways, you're right, it's silly most of the time, but emails in signatures have their uses.

RichRuh's picture
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Lotus Notes also likes to eat e-mails for no apparent reason.  I recommend keeping your e-mail address in your signature.

pmoriarty's picture
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I have two.  My short one that goes on the bottom of all messages is:

- Paul -

For more formal messages I add:

--  <===that's two dashes and a space - yes, I am old :)

Name

Title

Company

Phone number

ken_wills's picture

 JAREDAVD: You mention in your post that you have one that says "Thank you, Jared."

 

It's a personal peeve of mine when I see form-letter closes just above the signature (examples I see are "thanks," "kind regards," "in your service," etc.)

Because they're included in EVERY email, they become meaningless.

jaredavd's picture

I do not have an auto-signature adder.  I just realized I was in the habit of typing out "Thank you, Jared" at the end of a lot of mails, so I just made a casual signature I could use to save me a bit of time.  I pick the signature I want to use (I have 4) or I just pick "None" depending on the situation.

Desiretosucceed's picture

Can someone explain what it means name/linked to email.

 

I have the quote but I see I need to remove it.

scottmcl's picture
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One "peeve" of mine is those that take all this same info and package it into a fancy image. This has several issues:

1 - our email system limits the size of our mail boxes, which is a good thing and a bad thing. If someone has text in their email, the base size of the email is 1K. If they make all the same info into an image, the base email is 15K (as an example). That's not a lot from an individual email perspective. I tend to reach my size limit faster when going back and forth via email (yea, not efficient, I know, but it's how THEY communicate) with someone who has one of these image files in their signature file. After 10 emails, each with history, I now have an inbox with 15K to the 10 factorial size in my inbox. If it's just text in each email, then the email size is 10K (assumes I save every email, which I do...)

2 - If you want to contact someone via instant messenger, email, or call from your smartphone, you have to retype that info into whatever system you maintain in order to contact them. I'd rather just click the automatically hyperlinked piece of information that I need and get directly to the person. Save me some time, please!  ;)

3 - the flashing graphics that change tend to distract the "ADD" amongst us who, when trying to read your email, get distracted by the subtly changing graphic. Or worse, the rapidly changing graphic. We'll never get through your actual email, assuming that you also wrote a "thesis" email instead of a 3-5 line email max...

I hope these suggestions help someone out there!  ;)

Jrlz's picture

Per my companies corp policy my e-mail signature includes: Name, Title, Company, Address, Phone, Fax and Cell.  I am not allowed to put any graphics, quotes and I must use a specific font type.  I don't mind the specificity of the policy as I have seen e-mail signatures that were questionable in the past.

Gareth's picture

We have a company policy for this...

Name, 

Job Title and Department

Office Phone Number

Mobile Phone Number

Email Address

Full Legal signature for anything that goes external

 

Including images are always a bad idea, for two reasons: You can't guarantee that will display correctly and the extra bandwidth required in your company IT network to process the extra file size has a big impact if you have a large number of employees.

 

ashdenver's picture

Mine does include my certification credentials (which is reassuring to clients in my business.)  Unfortunately, mine also includes a boat-load more stuff that's company-mandated:

  • Name w/ cert creds
  • Company Name
  • Center Name
  • Title
  • Address
  • City, State ZIP
  • Phone
  • Fax
  • email
  • online support
  • Click here to get this thing the company offers for free
  • Did you know you could click here for this other free support area to do a slew of things which I'll partly list for you?

For my replies, though, it gets a bit abbreviated - which is to say I drop the last two bits of promotional advertising.  The other bits are relevant for mailing or direct contact purposes so I leave them in so they're handy in case what I've just replied is so shockingly fantastic, they just HAVE to reach me right away or are frantic to send me a gift for all of my fantastic work and don't want to have to go searching for my contact information.

From that perspective, I personally find it beyond annoying when - by the third reply - the other person says "Let's just talk on the phone" but there's no phone number anywhere to be found. 

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DiSC profile: 7-2-1-5

refbruce's picture

I agree with the post from tomw and emphasized in later posts.  I think about what the person receiving the e-mail needs. 

My default has my name, e-mail (because Outlook and others often eat the e-mail in forwards) my company, and my office phone.  If someone is going to send me something, I use the version that has my mailing address and my shipping address (because they're different).  A short note to someone with whom I correspond regularly may just have my name below it.  A very formal e-mail will use the one that has my degree (Ph.D.) and my full title.  And I occasionally use the one that shows my joint appointment with the local university.  I used to be bad about trying to use the one that would most impress people (and I probably still make that mistake), but I try to channel my thought process to what signature (out of the drop down list of five or six) is most appropriate for this note to this group of people and with where the note might get forwarded.  It takes a second or two, but I think it's worth putting myself in the shoes of the people who will get the note and think about what information they need or will appreciate. 

bug_girl's picture

I have 3 different signatures--one is just "Bug", and I use it for internal communications.  My directs and co-workers don't want to see my title, nor do they need to know where I work :)

I use "Bug Girl, PhD + title, email, website" for communicating with people in Academia who, rightly or wrongly, will sit up straighter if you flog them with your degree credentials.  Once I know them better, they go into the simple Bug Sig pile.

I have a mega-signature that I almost never use that shows the full collection of academic flair:  job title, degrees, certifications, adjunct faculty status, etc. That I only use when communicating with Deans/provosts, or extremely naughty students.

RickR's picture

I'm a UK entrepreneur running a one-man-band consulting firm, so I have two versions of my company email signature--one with a headshot and another without, and two versions of my personal gmail account--one with the headshot and one without the headshot. I do this to build personal rapport with receivers of my emails so they are more comfortable when they meet me.

I am now looking for a full time job at a company. Out of the four email signature blocks I have described above, which one do you recommend I use when corresponding with recruiters and potential employers?

Thanks, R