My employees are fighting over this???

Hi! I’m Peter, CEO of Kickresume, and these career-related stories caught my attention this month — and might catch yours too.

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I feel like people come up with new words every day now.

We’ve got quiet quitting, quiet firing, BYOAI, and most recently… 'Hey-hanging.'

Even though you might not know what it is yet, I can assure you – you already hate it.

And it turns out, a few of my employees have been beefing over it, too

Can newsletters make friends? Ours just made one!

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Gen Z is to blame (who else?)

Hey-hanging is basically when someone (say your coworker) sends you a message on Teams or Slack saying “Hey” with no additional info.

Now, luckily I never really experienced hey-hanging myself, but I was curious if this is going on in Kickresume's team. 

So I decided to survey my employees.

I simply asked: Does anyone at work message you “hey” with no context? How do you feel about it?

They had a lot to say…

Filip (Graphic designer, 30): “Yeah, Klara does it to me all the time. I mean, do you want coffee or is the office on fire? Most likely she needs to change the background color of an instagram post though. URGENTLY.“

Klara (Marketing, 25): "I do that all the time. It's just quicker, and I get faster responses. If I sent a long explanation of what I need from them, they'd probably ignore it, lol. Sometimes instead of “hey”, I just say “Filip” and nothing else. That works even better!”

Martin (Head of content, 34): "Honestly, it annoys me so much. Sometimes I just get a message that says “Martin.”  I won’t point my finger at anyone though (snitches get stitches). It always makes me think there's some kind of trouble. Did we get hacked? Did I make a typo in a webpage? Just tell me what's up! 

Tomas (Front-end developer, 31): “Sorry, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

Seems like we’ve found our resident culprit. To be fair, her reasoning makes sense. 

Sometimes, when I write detailed messages, I end up waiting hours for a reply —and I’m the boss. I can only imagine what the rest of the team has to go through.

Maybe I should start hey-hanging too.

“We need to talk” can ruin a day

Okay, so my extensive “survey” of three people shows that at our company, the main result of hey-hanging is… mild annoyance? 

But people who spent more time researching this topic have found some more dramatic consequences.

As Bryan Robinson, a psychotherapist and professor at the University of South Carolina, notes in his Forbes article, “Communication shortcuts like hey-hanging trigger uncertainty. And uncertainty triggers the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight or stress response) which in turn impacts mental health, job performance, and morale.”

Kind of like when someone tells you, “We need to talk.” and you immediately assume the worst and end up feeling stressed the whole day.

(Hey, this is Martin from the survey. Peter sent this newsletter to me for proofreading and I just wanted to say — I’ve never felt so seen in my life. Thank you, Mr Robinson.)

In the same way people might jump to negative conclusions about a manager's or coworker's intentions. 

Especially in remote work settings.

So, while for some it's just a mild annoyance and some simply don't care, for others, it can lead to serious anxiety.

If you wanna keep being a hey-hanger, consider your colleagues' personalities.

Not saying you cannot use it for some occasional trolling, but you gotta know your audience. 

And I need to send a “we need to talk” message to Klara.

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A random piece of career advice

When you sit down to write a cover letter, one of the first questions that might pop into your mind is: How long should a cover letter be?

Too long, and you risk losing the reader's interest.

Too short, and you might not convey enough about why you're the perfect fit for the role.

So, what's our recommendation?

• Word count: Try to hit the 250 - 400 words range. This should be long enough to cover the essentials but short enough to keep the reader's attention.

• Number of paragraphs: When it comes to structure, your cover letter should consist of 2 - 4 body paragraphs, framed by an introductory and a closing paragraph. 

• Pages: Overall, your cover letter should be between half a page and a full page in length. 

And what should the content of your cover letter be? 

Check out these 4 cover letter examples provided by real people who got hired with Kickresume’s help.

And as per usual, as a token of appreciation for your excellent scrolling skills, here’s a 20% discount code for Kickresume Premium. 

Catch you later! 

Peter