Make it easy to contact you

I recently spent some time on the phone giving some job search tips to senior marketing executive who is in search mode. We were introduced by a mutual friend, and I was impressed by his background (he just left an EVP of Marketing role at a $2 billion company). My first piece of advice (maybe the most valuable) was to make it easy for people to call him back.

We were scheduled to talk at 3 p.m., but then my schedule cleared up earlier and it looked like I would be busy at 3, so I figured I would try to call him. When I looked at his email, there was no phone number in the body of any of the emails we had exchanged. I had to open his resume on my iPhone, and then copy and paste his phone number.

Particularly if you WANT people to contact you, make it easy for them to do that.

Here are some simple steps to take:

1) Web-based or computer-based email: Create an automatic email signature with all the contact info you want to share. Consider including:
+ Phone numbers
+ Email address. Often neglected. Yes, the recipient will know your email address from the "To:" line, but make it easy for your recipient to copy and paste your email signature into Outlook contacts.
+ Skype ID
+ Link to your LinkedIn profile
+ Website address, if you have one
+ Link to your blog, if you have one
+ Link to whatever social media presence it makes sense to share (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
Outlook or any web-based email program makes that easy to do.
(And don't make your contact info an image - then people can't copy and paste)


2) Smartphone email. Change the default signature setting on your smartphone email to match the signature set up in step 1 above. Apple has enough brand recognition for their products, and you don't need to help them by having your email end with "Sent from my iPhone." Ending your emails with that tag says, "I'm not technically savvy enough to change the default email signature on my iPhone. If you choose to hire me, don't expect me to take much initiative to learn your systems. You'll need to hold my hand."

3) LinkedIn profile: Include your email address in your title, which everyone can see. I do this, and I haven't had a problem with email scammers scraping my email and sending me a lot of spam. If you are worried about this, you could use a disposable email address that you forward to your real address. Also include your email and phone number on your LinkedIn profile. Only your contacts will be able to see that.

4) Alumni sites. Let some synchronicity happen. Could be that just as you are working on a job search, a long lost friend from college is trying to reach out to see what you are up to because she has an opening at her firm... So update your contact info on whichever apply:
+ College alumni site
+ Grad school alumni site
+ Former employer alumni site