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Email signatures: Most of the time they might seem invisible, like something you have to put at the end of an email. But they might just be the key to understanding you.
What information you choose to include, or don’t include, like a cell number or pronouns, and how you choose to include it –– Italics? Bold? –– says something about you. When Michael McCluskey, an associate teaching professor of English at Northeastern University, teaches his business writing classes, there’s a reason he spends a lot of time on email signatures.
“You’re telling a story, whether or not you know it,” McCluskey says. “However you speak, however you write … it’s not just about the information you’re putting together. It’s about how you put it together.”
Like any other kind of writing, email signatures come down to intent and audience. What are you trying to say (or not say), and who are you trying to say it to? The information that most people would call boilerplate for an email signature –– like your name, job title and contact information –– serves a practical purpose, but also conveys something to people.
For example, McCluskey says choosing what contact info to include, or not include, has a clear practical use –– it directs people toward the first point of call for contacting you. It also, potentially, conveys work-life boundaries. McCluskey says including your email in an email signature might seem redundant, but it helps people know that email is not only the most efficient way to get in touch with you but the place you are most comfortable having professional interactions.
Jane Doe (she/her/hers)
Writer/reporter
email@example.com
But it’s outside of the more standard pieces of information where things start to get more complicated.
Some people like to include links to their work or social media, making their signatures into “some sort of mini resume or LinkedIn language,” says Ted Moss, a teaching professor of English at Northeastern.
For the students in Moss’ business writing class, the motivation is clear: It’s another way to pitch themselves to potential employers and highlight their accomplishments, Moss says. It ends up showing a kind of go-getter attitude, a sense that the person is mindful of their personal brand and that they are soft-selling their achievements even in their signature.
In other ways, the email signature can convey someone’s politics or morals, directly or indirectly and intentionally or unintentionally. The most obvious and prevalent example is the use of pronouns.
For McCluskey, including he/him/his pronouns in his email signature “is inclusive –– also it’s easy.” But he notes that since pronouns have become heavily politicized in the U.S. and elsewhere, including them in an email signature can, depending on who is reading the email, make it “seem like a political message, where really it’s just being inclusive.”
The use of pronouns highlights how much a seemingly simple part of regular communication –– an email –– can take on a host of broader meanings. Suddenly, simply including pronouns could be interpreted as leaning politically to the left, even if that’s not the case or, if it is the case, it’s not the intention of including them in the first place.
Then there are people who include quotes, which can more explicitly convey a person’s morals and principles. It might be a quote from someone’s favorite book or philosopher or figure from history, like Martin Luther King Jr., that sums up their philosophy on life. Or it’s just a funny quote from their favorite movie. Either way, it not only conveys their principles, McCluskey says, it shows they are the type of person who wants to convey their principles with the world.
John Doe
Executive director
123-456-7890
“If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“Regardless of the quote, it’s showing ‘I’m the type of person that does literary quotes,’” McCluskey says. “There’s an aesthetic. Even if you don’t read the quote, you know there’s a quote.”
With email signatures, it’s not just about what is included but how it’s included too.
“There are certain symbols or how you set up your pronouns –– are there slashes between? –– all of these extra things that come into play and stylistic choices,” Moss says. “In some ways, it does define you.”
Do you use italics, bold, capitalization, different font sizes or different colors? Or do you keep the text straightforward and uniform? Depending on who you’re writing to, being a little more playful with the style of your signature could convey your creativity or something else entirely.
“You can definitely see in some ways who’s quite orderly and organized and who is a little bit more haphazard and really hasn’t thought through what that means,” McCluskey says. “For those people, it might mean ‘I’m just playing around’ or ‘I saw it and that looked good to me,’ and that’s all well and good but it’s, ultimately, a public facing communication. It’s not a journal entry.”
In that way, an email signature is equal parts style and substance, a form of personal branding that evokes a traditional letterhead but is also much more similar to a personal bio on social media.
But even with all of the ways email signatures can become a, perhaps unintentional, mirror for a person, McCluskey says there are no definitive “don’ts.” He often sees students experimenting with their signatures, either in style or content, similar to how someone might try on different outfits for a job interview, and he doesn’t discourage it.
There’s only one thing he says not to do when it comes to email signatures.
“The red flag is not having one,” McCluskey says.