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General Advice on Mailing List Postings

Targetted mailing lists can be a great place to post about available jobs or resumes. But to avoid giving you or your organization a bad reputation it is important to use mailing lists in as polite a fashion as possible.

  • Don't post to a mailing list that has a "no jobs, no resumes" policy. We will make some effort to keep track of these below in the "Appropriate Places to Post" but ideally you should do a bit of research on the lists you post to before posting.
  • Do not post a job or resume repeatedly to the same list. If your organization has several job openings try and post them in a single post rather than sending several separate emails.
  • Only post to lists very "on topic" for the job posting. For instance, don't post to the GRASS list if you don't need GRASS skills just on account you think there might be some folks there with the skills you are looking for.
  • Try to minimize the total number of lists you post to. If you are posting to a job/resume to more than four or five mailing lists it is likely that many folks will get the post several times and their opinion of you will be lowered. So just select the optimal lists.
  • Do not email out resumes or job postings as attachments. Send email as plain text with links to web pages for full details and nicely formatted postings/resumes.
  • Prefix your subject line with "Job: " or "Resume: " so folks not interested can easily skip the email without reading into it. For instance "Resume: Frank Warmerdam" or "Job: Geoweb Developer - Washington, DC"
  • If you have some absolute requirements try to make them clear early in the email so folks don't have to read far before skipping the message. If you require someone with extensive PHP skills, or who is a US citizen or who speaks French fluently make it clear up front.
  • Most mailing lists require you to be subscribed to the list in order to accept posts from you. So, subscribe and get your email confirmation taken care of before posting. Otherwise your post may just be discarded, or sit waiting for a moderator to review.
  • Stay subscribed, at least for a couple weeks after posting, so you will be aware of followup or discussion about your post that happens on the list. If you think the list produces too much email to stay subscribed for a while, then don't contribute to it by posting! The price of imposing your post on the community represented by the list is being part of that community for at least a while.
  • If you are posting a resume, you will do yourself a huge favor by actually participating in the mailing lists you post to. Answer questions when you can for instance. Showing knowledge in a constructive way is better for you than fancy sounding fluff on your resume.
  • If you are looking for work, considering add a link to your resume in your email signature so your availability is made clear to those who are impressed by your contribution to the mailing list. This sort of approach should be appropriate on any mailing list - even those which have a "no resume" posting rule.

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