The Art of Autism receives a ton of email from autistic people and others. From reading that correspondence, we have some insights for those who submit and correspond to the Art of Autism. We realize that many autistic people are looking for employment and that often employment applications are sent through email. Please be aware of some of these unwritten rules.
1. Subject Line – your subject line should reflect the content of your email.
2. Check for spelling and grammar (especially if you are submitting a post to the Art of Autism). There are simple spell and grammar checkers available to check your content.
3. Don’t send multiple emails that can be condensed into one email. We get tons of emails each day. It’s time consuming to open individual emails. This may require taking a few minutes before you send the email and thinking about whether this email contains all I want to convey.
4. Don’t hound people. Be aware of the organization you are submitting to and their structure. Sometimes it takes a few weeks to get posts onto our website. That is because we have lots of submissions and this is an all-volunteer organization.
6. Send the email to the correct person. Take time to research the website and know who you are sending to.
7. Name your attachments appropriately. This means your file names should contain your name and the title of your piece.
8. Think about size. Big-sized photo files do not work for the web. Do not send files that are over 1 MB for posting on the web. Make sure that they are 72 dpi and in .jpg or .png format. Big files take storage and time to open.
9. Read and reread submission guidelines. I’ve heard from a number of organizations that the reason that a person did not get a job or selected for an art contest (for example) is because they did not follow the submission guidelines. On the Art of Autism our submission guidelines are posted here.
10. Include images as attachments. Don’t embed them into the text of your email or document you are sending (this is a rule for our site).
11. Be appreciative. At the end of emails, it’s always polite to say “Thank you for your consideration,” or “thank you for your time.”
For those who need a visual here is a sample email.
