Writing an email to a stranger is easy. Writing an email to a stranger that gets a response? Not so easy. The typical professional gets so many messages on a daily basis. It’s a feat if they even open yours — let alone reply.
The importance of introduce yourself over email to a potential supervisor was discussed in a separate blog post. This blog post will cover how to write the best email to get the highest conversion rate.
Subject line
Having a proper subject line may be the most important thing when you Introduce Yourself Over Email to a Potential Supervisor because this is the first thing the recipient will see. The subject line is not where you should put all of your creativity into work, using all the best words you know. You will have more freedom to be creative in the email body. But the subject line is all about “the accuracy”.
Think about your potential supervisors perspective. If the graduate application deadline is near, a supervisor gets more than 100 emails a day. Remember, a supervisor always receives so many other emails from industrial collaborators, universities etc.
There’s little to no time to think about whether to open an email or not. So, you should be clear and precise to lead your potential supervisor to check your email. But, you can not put all other information to impress the recipient in the subject line. You have to respect the recipients time.
A subject line should be only used to lead the recipient to “Open” the email.
Preferred subject lines to Introduce Yourself Over Email to a Potential Supervisor are :
- Inquiry from a prospective graduate student
- Inquiry about potential PhD opportunities
- Request for PhD supervision
- Seeking a PhD position
Stay away from these subject lines.
- No subject line (These emails will go straight into the junk folder)
- Hello
- Use of all caps (Will mark as spam)
- Graduate scholarship Info needed, URGENT!
Salutation
Address your potential supervisor as either doctor or professor.
Make sure to visit their web page or the university pages where they have mentioned the salutation before their name.
Remember, it’s equally offensive to call someone Mr. when they have a doctorate and call someone Dr. when they don’t have a doctorate.
So, make sure you know who you are talking to.
Do not use the recipient’s first name, especially in the first email.
If they use their first name in their reply, It’s a way of letting you know they are comfortable with you addressing them by their first name.
Although, it’s always safe to use a salutation such as Dear professor (Last name). Or Hello professor (Last name).
Introduce yourself with a short paragraph
Introduce yourself briefly in the first paragraph. You do not necessarily have to mention your name because you can mention that in your email signature.
But, make sure to mention your educational background. For instant, mention your most recent academic qualification.
Then, you can mention why you are writing to the recipient.
Your first paragraph is an extended version of your title. So, it should be short and clear to maintain the flow of your message.
It’s time to be specific
Once you have introduced yourself, you have now the background ready.
Next, you can mention that you’ve visited the professor’s website and read their recent publications but make sure that you have read them before writing the email, and be truthful.
Explain why would you like to work with the professor and why are you interested in doing research.
Also, take this opportunity to highlight some of your achievements during academic or in your work tenure.
Focus on the technical skills you think may match the professor’s research area of interest.
But do not overuse this paragraph to mention all of your achievements.
After all, a potential supervisor is not just interested in what you have achieved in the past, but what do you like to do in the future.
This is also an excellent opportunity to mention a recent publication of yours.
This will further increase your prospective supervisor’s interest in your application because it gives them the impression that you are actively doing research.
A call to action
You can ask if there are any openings in their lab in the following semester. It’s always a good idea to include a call to action at the end of your email.
Make sure to include this in a separate paragraph.
Having a call to action could be one of the essential aspects when you introduce yourself over email to a potential supervisor.
Because a call to action creates an opportunity to open a discussion.
These discussions would potentially lead you to other potential supervisors.
Importance of your email signature
As mentioned initially, having your title in line would be the most critical aspect of getting a reply to your email.
But, there’s something else that nobody pays attention to but can increase your conversion rate tremendously.
And that is your email signature.
When you introduce yourself over email to a potential supervisor, you can not use more than 200-250 words because otherwise, it seems like you’re not respecting your potential supervisor’s time.
Less is more!
But, this leads you to a position where you have to develop the best strategy to make a big impression with the least amount of words.
This is where having a perfect email signature comes in handy.
It is a professional touch to your email. It gives the impression that you are serious about what you are doing.
At the same time, you can include some of your professional associations (Especially in line with your area of research). But, again, do not try to include everything.
And another advantage is, it’s less likely that your email will be ended up in the spam folder if there’s an address in your email. You can include your institutional address in the email signature.
Schedule your emails
Do not send it right away once you are done writing your email, especially if your prospective supervisor lives in another time zone.
A college professor receives an enormous amount of emails on a single day. If you send the email at midnight, it will be the last email on the list of emails when the professor checks their inbox at 9 AM the following day.
If you think about this situation from your prospective supervisor’s perspective, you do not want your email to be ended up at the last of the list.
The chances of getting a reply for an email is exponentially higher if it is the first email your recipient opened that day(And vice versa).
Because, depends on the number of emails received, your email might not be open until the afternoon. In this case, a graduate student’s advantage of securing a position in that particular professor’s lab is just sending the email at the right time if the qualifications are similar.
For example, here is a capture of my inbox on a single day, 1 hour apart. I scheduled 14 emails at 9 AM and received nine replies within an hour.
Follow these steps to schedule your email:
- Find out your supervisors time zone and compare it to yours. Use time zone converter.
- Check the time in your time zone that matches the 9 AM (Weekdays only) of your prospective supervisors time zone.
- Schedule your email
Suppose your supervisor lives in Victoria, BC, and you live in Colombo, Sri Lanka. You have to schedule your email for 10.30 PM.
If you use the outlook windows app, you can schedule an email by clicking “Delay Delivery” under the “Options” tab.
Attachments
Do not attach so many documents to your email. Always remember, you’re trying to make things easy for your recipient.
Do not forget to compress the documents to reduce the attachment size. Keep the sum of your document size under 2MB.
You may attach :
1. Your academic CV with references.
2. Your proposal (If applicable)
3. Your recent publication
4. Your academic transcript
Be patient
After you have emailed your prospective supervisors, now is the waiting time, which may seem quite long.
Check your emails regularly so that you can reply promptly to any of the queries or clarifications requested by the professors.
Do not expect an immediate response.
All the supervisors are pretty busy (Especially during the exam season, which is often close to the application deadlines)and prefer to reply to the emails during weekends.
If you do not receive a response, it may happen because their research area might not match with yours, or they may currently have no funding or maybe shifting to other universities or closer to retirements.
Do not be disheartened for receiving a negative response or for not receiving a response at all.
Some professors shortlist the candidates and will contact you if your profile is good.
Do not give up after approaching only two or three professors.
And always be truthful, be humble and polite in your email as it will leave a first impression, and it is also a good way to build up trust with a person who has never seen you or met you.
Keep refining and modifying your templates.
When you are trying to introduce yourself over email to a potential supervisor, you will find some adjustments down the road that will make your email more versatile. Make sure to add those changes to your email.
When using your template to write to many professors, ensure that you change the subject, the content, and most importantly, the professor’s name.
Because, professors will probably dismiss the emails without even going through the details once they see that the email is being addressed to another person.
Since you will most likely use the same template using a text expander, it would be a good idea to use software such as PhraseExpress or PhraseExpander.
A template to Introduce Yourself Over Email to a Potential Supervisor
Title: Inquiry from a prospective graduate student
Dear Professor XXX,
I am a (Your major) graduand from the (Your university). I’m interested in a graduate study opportunity under your supervision in your research group.
I am considering applying to your department’s graduate program, one reason being that I am very interested in the work you are doing on XXX. Given that your research XXX, it further encourages me to apply since it is a perfect confluence of my research interests. I particularly enjoyed your paper “(Paper that you’re interested in)” and possibly see myself doing that kind of work. My own research interests relate to XXX.
I graduated with a (Your overall GPA) and a (CGPA) in the last two years of undergraduate study and am currently working as a XXX for (Time you have been working) at XXX. . I have just submitted an article on my current research findings, which was accepted by (Journal or conference). I have attached our recent publication and other relevant documents with more details.
I am wondering if you will be considering taking on new PhD advisees for September intake or if you have suggestions for other faculty I should reach out to. I would be happy to answer any questions or have an online interview if more information would be helpful.
You will find a more personalized version of this email here.
Final words
Writing many emails to potential supervisors without having a clear idea about the emailing process would not necessarily give you better results.
Email writing tips mentioned in this blog post will drastically increase your chances of getting a reply.
Be honest and truthful when you introduce yourself over email to a potential supervisor.
As always, be proactive, be kind and try to help one another!
Images courtesy : Background vector created by rawpixel.com – www.freepik.com , Business photo created by drobotdean – www.freepik.com
