Communication - don't assume anything
When you are looking for a horse job or want to hire help for your farm or stable, communication can break down very easily. Matters of employment in the horse industry are frequently arranged over long distances. Initial contact between job seekers and employers is usually handled by telephone, fax, email, or postal mail. Each of these technologies has it’s potential for failure. Here are a few of the failures that can happen.
1. Telephone
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number given incorrectly
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number dialed incorrectly
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problem in the telephone circuits
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area code changed
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telephone disconnected
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voice mail not working
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messages unclear or incomplete
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messages lost
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telephone number changed
2. Fax
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machine not connected
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machine out of paper or ink
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machine connected to poor quality phone line making faxing impossible
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receiving machine incompatible with sending machine
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machine sharing telephone line with too many other devices
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printed fax delivered by hand to wrong person
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fax number given or dialed incorrectly
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“call waiting” not disabled, causing fax to fail when another call comes in
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fax machine damaged or worn resulting in unreadable faxes
3. Email
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email account “over quota” or “mailbox full” resulting in messages being returned
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email address given or entered incorrectly
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email address changed without notice
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“reply to” address is incorrect in email header.
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corrupt recipient mailbox
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recipient email server down
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message deleted without notice due to certain attachment file types or any attached file
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message filtered out by recipient’s spam filters
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message not allowed because sender’s email account is not set up according to established rules.
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message not delivered AND no notice of non-delivery is sent to sender.
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attachments in incompatible/non-standard format
4. Postal Mail
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Wrong address given or entered.
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Apartment number not given
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Street address is used when recipient gets mail at a P.O. Box.
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Shared address without use of “care of” (c/o), resulting in mail being returned
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Wrong zip code
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City and Zip code do not match street address (two addresses mixed.)
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Mail lost in transit
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Improper postage
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Mail addressed to wrong person
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Mail delivered to wrong person
These are only a few of the most common ways in which communication can fail. You can see how easy it is for most any kind of communication to fail. Even if your message gets through, it can still be misinterpreted, misplaced, or contain insufficient information.
To increase your chances of success in hiring, be on the lookout for communication failures. When possible, speak to employee by telephone first. When you speak directly to a person, you know immediately that your message has been received and you get an initial reply. If you use any other method, voice mail, email, fax, or postal mail and you don’t get a reply, always follow up to find out if your message was received.
