Thursday, June 8, 2017

9 Things You Should Never Say in a Salary Negotiation

You’re 96 percent sure that you are ready to schedule a meeting with your boss to ask for a raise. Or perhaps you’re nearing the end of the job interview process and an offer is in sight. However, if you’re like me, you have definitely put your foot in your mouth a time or two saying the wrong thing at the absolute worst moment. Doh!

Don’t mess up.

Don’t mess up.

No matter how many times you rehearse what to say, there’s always that risk of fumbling right at the five-yard line.

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Future Perfect

The future perfect is a verb tense used for actions that will be completed before some other point in the future.

The parade will have ended by the time Chester gets out of bed. At eight o’clock I will have left.

Key words: Verb, past participle, tense, preposition

The future perfect tense is for talking about an action that will be completed between now and some point in the future.

Friday, June 2, 2017

What PS Means and How to Use It Correctly in Your Email

In the days before email, Paul McCartney famously sang, “PS I love you” on The Beatles’ 1963 album, Please Please Me. But what does PS mean and how do we use it in modern communication?

What Is the Meaning of PS?

PS stands for postscript. It comes from the Latin postscriptum, which literally means “written after.” A postscript is an additional thought added to letters (and sometimes other documents) that comes after it has been completed.

Thursday, June 1, 2017

7 Homophone Mistakes to Avoid

When you’re speaking out loud, homophones sound alike, but when you’re writing them out, it’s a different story. Though they have the same pronunciation, homophones may have slightly different spellings and totally different definitions. Since using the wrong one can completely change the meaning of your statement, it’s important to make sure you have the right word in mind. Here are seven homophone mistakes to avoid.

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

17 Email Etiquette Rules to Know and Practice

Since the early days of AOL (“You’ve got mail!”), I’ve spent countless hours in the email trenches working in jobs that ranged from customer service rep to online community manager to managing editor to PR representative. I’ve done the math, and even estimating at an ultra-conservative ten emails per day over twenty years, I’ve sent at least 73,000 emails. Those experiences, both good and bad, taught me what to do and what not to do.

Monday, May 29, 2017

Sorry for the Late Reply: How to Apologize for a Delayed Response

You don’t always respond to emails right away. In fact, sometimes you put them off until the next day, the next week, or—downcast gaze—the next month. At some point the calculus shifts from “Can I somehow compose an email that justifies my glacially slow response-time?” to “Would it be easier to just fake my death instead?”

While it doesn’t look or feel great, sometimes you have to own up to sleeping on someone’s message.

Friday, May 26, 2017

When Is the Best Time to Send an Important Email?

Your email may never be opened. Sure, you wrote brilliant copy. You also took the time to craft a compelling subject line. You followed good email etiquette. But, unless you considered the best time to send an email, your message may still be destined for the trash bin.

By my conservative estimate, I’ve sent at least 100,000 emails since the early days of the Internet. (May Prodigy rest in peace.) It wasn’t until I started handling public and media relations a decade or so ago that I gave a second thought to how an email’s send time affects open rates.