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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Nicholas,
ReplyDeleteThe points you made in the critique are agreeable with. However, I felt that there were some flaws in the message as it did not completely comply with the 7Cs.
In my opinion, the format of the email was appropriate. I agree that it was right to open the email with a word of congratulations, as it was the element of a courteous email. The email lacked concreteness. For instance, it did not state when and where Shell Recruitment Day was held. I agree that the email was clear as there was a sequential organization of information to help the reader follow the message. It is also true that there was conciseness in the message through the use of active-voice sentences to emphasize the subject. However, there were notable wordy expressions, such as “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,” which could have be more concise. I wish to differ that there was completeness in the email as the message seemed brief, with missing information on Shell Recruitment Day as suggested above. Also, there were no contact details of any Shell staff in event that further inquiries had to be made. I agree that the paragraphing and short sentences contribute to coherence of the email. However, I felt that the second sentence, “Further to your recent interview with us,” was incoherent by itself. Lastly, correctness was not entirely present in the email. The effective use of punctuation could have made the long sentences easier for the reader to comprehend.
Regards,
Bryan
Hi Nicholas,
ReplyDeleteIts a well-written letter i must say. I liked the way they broke the good news and the polite tone they used throughout the letter. The letter was coherent and cohesive as the organization of the paragraphs had a flow. In terms of clarity,I must agree with you that the message that they were trying to convey was easily understood. However, i felt that the sentences were too lengthy. Moreover,there were slight grammatical errors as the comma after the "regard" was missing as the commas at the opening and ending usually come in a pair and certain sentences lacked proper phrasing.
Like u said nothing is perfect but, overall a good sample letter for viewing. :)
Cheers
Rathi
Hi Nicholas,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this email. It’s a good practice for a good news message to open with “Congratulations!” Thus the recipient will usually be delighted to read the rest content carefully.
As Bryan and Rathi pointed out, lengthy sentences appeared several times, such as in 4th paragraph and 6th paragraph where concise wordings could have been used to express the same meaning.
Besides, there seems to be a grammatical error in the 4th paragraph. The structure goes as “The Recruitment Day is scheduled based on ******* upon which a date will be set”; “upon which a date will be set” looks redundant and can be well omitted.
Finally, all the best for A’s interview with Shell ! :P
Regards,
June