Business Correspondence Critique

This week’s post would be a critique on a business letter. Below, I have reproduced (even up to the spacing used) an email regarding an employment offer. Only the addressee’s name and email has been amended.

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Subject: Application to Employment position
From: Shell (Please_enter_your_own_email_address@shell.com)
Sent: 05 February 2009 17: 32PM
To: A@hotmail.com

Your Ref No:-001A9C7D316


Dear A,

Congratulations!

Further to your recent interview with us.

We are pleased to inform that our assessment of your performance at the interview has been meeting our criteria and you have been short listed for our Shell Recruitment Day.

The Shell Recruitment Day is scheduled based on business requirements and specific matching of the job description with your background upon which a date will be set.

In the event that none of the conditions above are met, candidates will be kept in our database for reference and future consideration until there is a suitable match. In conclusion your application will still be kept active for a period of 2 years after the date of your interview.

We take this opportunity to thank you for the interest you have shown in our Company and thank you very much for your patience and understanding.

CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE SURVEY

At Shell we are committed to the continuous improvement of our interview process and would be grateful if you could take a few minutes of your time to complete our "Candidate Experience Survey". The survey is managed by a third party supplier and is completely anonymous. Your individual responses will not be made available to Shell.

Your feedback on this extremely valuable to us and we appreciate your time given. Thank you for your participation.

Please click here to access the survey http://www.maven-web.net/sce/login.asp?Quest=53&Route=2


Kind regards


Shell

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The first line after the opening address goes “Congratulations!”, thus the addressee can immediately establish that this is a good news message. Thus, the excited and hopeful addressee would be reading the rest of the email very carefully for information about what to expect next and, whether any action is required on the addressee’s part. At this point of time, the addressee is likely to be more concerned with the factual contents of the email, rather than the subtleties, such as its tone and sincerity.

In terms of clarity, conciseness and completeness, the email has fulfilled the requirements. Every paragraph is short and brings out a point.. Within each paragraph, the point raised is clear and easy to understand without any ambiguity. The information conveyed is also complete in that it informs the addressee the outcome of the previous interaction (the interview), what to expect next (the Shell Recruitment Day), as well as some background information regarding the subsequent events.

Of course, not everything is perfect. Let’s hear some possible areas for improvement in the blog comments.