E-mail Etiquette for Millennials

I share this post from Life Before Noon not because it's revolutionary or new but because it comes from Millennials. Advice from Millennial peers on using e-mail professionally may just sink in. And it's always nice to see the young people encouraging one another to behave.


The point about practicing good e-mail etiquette with professors certainly got my attention. I've started requiring properly written e-mails (no "u" for "you" or other text messaging conventions) from students before I'll answer them. It gives them extra practice writing, teaches a little professionalism (which was the original goal), and it predisposes me to view their requests and questions much more favorably (a little bonus for everyone that took me by surprise).

Millennials Search for Jobs

I was at Rutgers-Camden School of Law this past Wednesday, invited to speak to the students about being generation-savvy in their job search. I do a lot of speaking to faculties at faculty colloquia and retreats about how to relate to Xer and Millennial students. I enjoy it because I've heard over the years that information I've presented has enhanced the teaching experience for some folks. Since I love teaching law students, it's fun to be able to do something that makes it fun for someone else.

But the most fun, by far, is speaking to students about what to expect from their Boomer and Xer professors and employers and how to adapt so that they get the most from their relationships with supervisor-types.

Xers got a bad rap -- and continue to -- because no one told us what the expectations were when we got into professional school and the profession. I know that sounds ridiculous to some -- how could we not know the expectations? We just didn't. Xers hadn't been particularly well trained by their late Silent or early Boomer parents.

The new generation of law students and lawyer are far better trained to get along with supervisors, but two things still stand in their way: The first is the Xer hangover that law firms are experiencing. Law firms just began to acknowledge that they needed to do something to adapt to the Xer lawyers that were coming through their doors, and some of the firms have done this admirably. Unfortunately, just when they got the hang of adapting for the Xers, here come the Millennials. So Millennials are getting some of the adaptations that weren't designed for them, and it's not always a great fit. The second thing that stands in the way of constructive Millennial relationships with supervisors is that the Boomers and Xers still think that Millennials have an inflated sense of themselves. I don't think that's accurate. I think Millennials have an accurate sense of themselves combined with an unrealistic expectations that others fully understand what Millennials bring to the table.

So Millennials have to understand that they're fighting an uphill battle against the perceptions of professors and employers that Millennials (a) are like Xers and (b) have an inflated sense of themselves. This means that Millennials have to approach these supervisors with a lot of humility until the supervisors realize what an asset Millennials really are.