Instructions

Important Advice 

Preparing Application Material and Drafting the First Academic Email

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started" — Mark Twain

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Drafting the First Academic Email

Preparing the application material and simultaneously drafting the first academic email is very important, crucial and necessary in order to make and mark your first impression among thousands like you. Doing this is very intimidating for the first time but this is the only means in today’s context how will you stand out among others. Most of us are unaware of how to draft an email, especially to an academician (faculty member) for enquiring about an available position in the lab or for doing a project and an employer for sending the application material for an opening/vacancy against the invited call. Therefore, the email must be well-structured, professional and affable while the application material should be properly organised as per the specific requirement in a particular order (unless specified)

Dear Professor,

My name is Name and I am a 3rd year undergraduate student from the Department of ABC, University of Name, Location. I am looking for a project/internship under your guidance at an esteemed institute like this in the month of duration. I am aware of the quality of research at your institute. I have enclosed my resume in this mail which contains all the required details and my skill set. Hoping for a positive and speedy reply.

Thanking You,

Yours Sincerely,

Name

Above is an example of a generic email which could be sent to many faculty members at the same time without any modification with just one mail and click. Please be aware, that with this email you will never ever receive a reply. Similarly, there are other ways of writing such generic emails. It gets even worse when the sender sends the same mail to the recipient more than once on the same day and continuously for the following days too. Great! please do not expect that you will receive a reply except a warning ‘Don’t send such emails any more’. 

Once a student wrote to me a few years ago “I am a plant breeder, completed a Bachelor in Agriculture and would like to work with you on breeding”. Perhaps got the details from somewhere but I knew certainly that the mail was not at all intended for me as my background does not align with that field. Recently, we advertised a position on plant tissue culture and we received an application (note: only resume was attached and nothing was written in the body or any other attachment) from a civil engineer. Please check and recheck to whom you are addressing your email before you click ‘Send’.

Having this said, please be very cautious and careful, sometimes knowingly and unknowingly in the process of drafting an email and just to send/submit the application, you may end up copying ‘other sources’ from ‘ABC source’. Please note, that this is a very big issue and this kind of habit should be immediately avoided and is considered a serious academic offence. Never do this and should not be promoted as well.

Some guidelines (DO’s) on how an email should be drafted and application material be prepared are described below:

Title: Always provide a crisp, concise and informative title.

Salutation: Always should start with ‘Dear’ (most used/preferred) or sometimes ‘Hello’ (not preferred although) followed by a salutation (Dr/Prof), if the position/title of the sender is known then mention accordingly and appropriately (Dear Dr Rajendran or Dear Prof Subramaniam), and in cases where the title is not known, ‘Dr’ can also be used.

Note to remember: 1) Never put Dr and Sir/Mam together as in “Dear Dr Rajendran Sir/Madam”, as you are already referring to and acknowledging their position as ‘Dr/Prof’ in a formal manner, therefore, no further formality is required. However, you may refer to him/her as Dear Sir/Dear Madam, if not holding a position but are senior to you (informal way).     

2) Check the spelling before sending, as spelling mistakes will delay the responses or sometimes will lead your email to the trash.

3) Never start your email by writing Hi!, can be sent to your contemporaries but can’t be used for your seniors.

Introduction: Introduce yourself by mentioning your name, qualification/s, from where you are pursuing/pursued followed by location. (As the recipient will be receiving such emails 100s daily from different senders).

Main content/body/specific intentions: Describe your motivation in sending the email by explaining your interest, how and why you have arrived also what is your goals and objectives. (Do not overdo it, make it simple, precise and accurate, most importantly try to be yourself only, caution – do not copy-paste from other sources).

Ending: The ending should be clear, polite and respectful. You cannot demand or order in the very first email you sent, need to politely ask to share their feedback on your expression of interest.

Attachments: If you wish to attach any document you can do so but be careful to proofread the documents as well before uploading. The documents which you can attach for an internship (2-6 months) include 1) a statement of purpose (usually 500 words), 2) a brief research proposal, 3) an academic CV (max 2 pages) and for higher studies esp. PhD 4) original transcripts and 5) letters of recommendation (LOR) (if already in possession) (See comments below).  

Finally, thank the reader for his/her time and consideration and sign off with ‘Kind Regards’ followed by your full name and affiliation. 

Finally, before pressing the ‘Send’ button, go through the email once again and remove any grammatical or typos errors.

Having said this, only those who stand out in all respects will get the replies.  

Comments: Statement of purpose, research proposal, preparation of an academic CV and LOR are very crucial for your candidature to be shortlisted for further process and which ultimately make you the suitable one, yes obviously, your email structure also matters which will create a first impression. I would be happy to assist with this if anyone is interested.  

Preparing the application material

Please carefully and strictly follow the guidelines shared by the employer before just sending either the email (discussed in the above section) or documents blindly.

Each employer requires a certain set of specific skills apart from the general skills and background. For instance, now you are ready to apply for a Master’s program (3rd year in particular), you will choose areas or fields which are similar to your background (MSc Botany followed by Biotechnology, Forensic Science, Microbiology etc) rather than selecting a totally different/new field (of course which is difficult to obtain one in India) (MSc Chemistry, Physics etc). Similarly, for IIT JAM you can only apply for the BT paper. So, everywhere there are specific requirements which are essential and must be fulfilled in order to be shortlisted for that opening.  

Read the instructions and requirements first properly and carefully and arrange the documents in that particular order, generally arranged in chronological order. Do not expect the employer to choose the document they want from the 10+ attachments you have made, randomly scanned, unnecessary/irrelevant attachments. Always note that the better you present yourself, the higher will be the chances of selection. The documents need to be in a single properly scanned (good quality/high resolution) PDF. Do not force the employer to find a magnifying lens or reject your application instantly.

For instance, recently we invited applications for a junior research fellow (referred to as JRF) post, and received a bunch of applications, yes of course, some thought we would take whatever information we wanted from their attachments and we would fill in the blanks left in the application. The applicant needs to check if they have any prescribed format, if yes, then you are expected to submit the completely filled-in form followed by your marksheets, any experience certificate provided by your former employer, essential eligibility certificate (such as NET/JRF/GATE) and if you want that the employer to know more about you and your skills attach additional documents which are relevant to the desired skills as posted by the employer then only include in the application material, otherwise, do not dare to include irrelevant experience (school teaching experience/quality control in a private company/research carried in a different domain etc for a research position) and conference/competitions certificates related documents.

Note: Do not consider the employer inferior, underestimate their potential and abilities. Do not act over-smart and over-show yourself. Be patient and spare some time for the employer to undergo the scrutiny and shortlisting process. You are not allowed to demand about the interview dates etc unless you want to know about the status of your application politely and professionally.