Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

Before diving into my email/contact follow up schedule, a quick update on my internship.

Phew, cannot believe that three weeks has already gone by, it feels like I started yesterday. I have been staffed on five projects: a turnaround where I am working directly with the CEO, a sell side where I will be sitting in on a management meeting, another sell side where I built a market map of international companies, one more sell side in which I am building and editing a deck for a pitch to a client’s board and lastly a buy side where I am helping build a market map of target companies. The hours have been long, but worth it. The amount I learned in the past three weeks has been immense, and I still have about five weeks left.

At G2 follow ups have not been necessary every email I send out is responded to inside of thirty minutes whether it be comments on my work, and next steps, or simply saying I ‘got it will look at within a day.’ Being responsive and following up is essential in getting the job, then keeping it and excelling at it. I will walk you through my process for responding to emails, and following up to emails I do not get a response to.

When responding to emails, I recommend responding the first time you see it. I know it sounds cliché but a lot of people see an email and say I’ll respond to it later. The issue with this logic is that you can easily forget or not respond to it until a few hours later. The most common mistake I see made is people not responding to emails because a question was never asked. It is always better to over communicate, I respond to emails even if it is just to say “received.”

The squeaky wheel gets the grease is what you should think of when following up to an email. For a typical email with someone you do not work with or are regularly in contact with I recommend; waiting two days then sending the first follow up. If they do not respond to this now start sending, follow up emails every day. I structure my follow up emails by stating which number follow up it is, and typically something referring to the initial message. I have sent follow up emails twenty consecutive days in a row, then got the job. I have noticed sending five or six if I mention the squeaky wheel quote I used earlier they respond almost right away.

Tips to better respond to messages:

  • Set phone and desktop alerts that show up on your lock and home screen
  • Respond even if it is just to say “received”
  • Follow up two days after sending email then every day until the person responds