In all of these years,
I've rarely heard anything but kind words for Gerry and his partner Mark Mehler.
Career Crossroads, their multi-year
joint project, has become a centerpiece in both candidate education and the
dissemination of best practices. More than a few folks have failed to reconcile
the two sides of the recruiting puzzle. Gerry and Mark seem to get better at it
with each passing day.
They offer a number of free information services:
What got me thinking about Gerry was something almost unrelated to his great
work. The signature at the end of a recent email included a wonderful picture,
the usual contact information and the following text:
The Staffing Strategy Connection
I am committed to writing, researching and sharing my adventures,
opinions and data about evolving staffing models with the HR profession,
clients and friends. Together with my business partner, Mark Mehler, I
strive to observe and influence new and evolving models that aspire to
world-class, measurable standards and satisfy every stakeholder. I am
passionate about how firms design and build staffing processes, the
technology to enhance them and the systems to manage them. I want to know
more about the ‘playing fields' where candidates and employers meet and I'm
more than a little curious about how they treat one another: how Job Seekers
‘game' their next career move while Employers tout their latest
opportunities.
I'm constantly on the lookout for stories about staffing challenges,
benchmarks, and results as well as the people who live the stories they
tell. (For more on the CareerXroads Colloquium go to
http://www.careerxroads.com/colloquium/colloquium.htm ).
In general, I've been opposed (since an ugly experience with Plaxo a couple
of years back) to bulky signatures in email. But, I've been haunted by a recent
conversation with
Amitai Givertz. He said, "John, you are wrong. Email is not dead, the way we
use it is dead." Sufficiently cryptic, I've toyed with the idea over the past
month and concluded that there was truth on Ami's side.
Gerry's expansive email signature helped me see some of what Ami might have
meant. The signature caught my attention in an off moment. Gerry had responded
to a request for help from a mutual friend (He offered succinct and sage
advice.) I scrolled through his note and was distracted by another task. When I
returned to email, there was his signature staring me in the face. If Gerry
hadn't added the extra content, I'd never have considered the subject. This
article attests to the effectiveness of Gerry's signature.
Email is a tool for communicating intimately. Not all recipients will engage
with all aspects of the note. I have been designing my correspondence to make it
fit the most utilitarian possible usage, limiting my signature to a one line
call back number. Maximum efficiency for the reader has been my email motto.
Between Gerry and Ami, I am coming to believe that readers of email are going
to take greater and greater responsibility for the material they consume. So, as
I lean towards more extensive signatures, I wonder what you think. Email
signatures-- room for more or hope for less?
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