51–60 of 61 posts
A huge percentage (most?) emojis are unhelpful precisely because their meanings are unclear. If they're from someone I've interacted with enough then I learn how to decipher what they mean by different ones, but if I've not then it's too risky to try and guess. This aspect of emojis is why I dislike them.
I had a candidate apply for a role and in his comms with our female recruiter sent a fairly ambiguous response and finished it up with the nail polish emoji. That definitely ended his candidacy. Not sure exactly what it meant, but couldn’t think of a good explanation for it.
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> They are helpful because they are unclear. Except their usage is often too unclear for the recipient. If that praying emoji after a request means they are praying for me to fullfil it? Or they just namaste me? Or they need that request fulfilled because they highly depend on it? If someone tags my message with a clown emoji - does that message brought extreme joy to them or should I find them to talk face to face w…
I thought the praying emoji is a stand-in for thanking someone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They are helpful because they are unclear. Except their usage is often too unclear for the recipient. If that praying emoji after a request means they are praying for me to fullfil it? Or they just namaste me? Or they need that request fulfilled because they highly depend on it? If someone tags my message with a clown emoji - does that message brought extreme joy to them or should I find them to talk face to face w…
I thought the praying emoji is a stand-in for thanking someone.
I'd take it as "I'm praying for you", which can be meant in both a positive and negative way.
Always dreaded having to explain things like the thumbs up emoji or ship it squirrel to regulators, auditors, compliance and how that technically meets the change policy definition of “approved by senior technology leadership in writing on a ticket” if they put it on a release request or PR.
The issue with colorful emojis is that they are represented differently on different platforms. If you want to control what emoji the receiver of your message actually sees, you have to use ascii emojis :-)
That was the first inkling I got that emojis were risky.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the praying emoji is a stand-in for thanking someone.
That's an interpretation that would never have occurred to me. Perhaps there's a cultural difference here? I don't see people in real life use that gesture to mean "thanks", so the thought wouldn't have crossed my mind in emoji form. I'd take it as "I'm praying for you", which can be meant in both a positive and negative way.
I had a candidate apply for a role and in his comms with our female recruiter sent a fairly ambiguous response and finished it up with the nail polish emoji. That definitely ended his candidacy. Not sure exactly what it meant, but couldn’t think of a good explanation for it.
Ending someone’s candidacy over an emoji you don’t understand seems premature at best. I know gay guys who use the nail polish emoji all the time at the end of their sentences, for example. Any chance this guy was gay and just being a bit casual with a recruiter he got along with?
That said, I hadn’t done the comms or calls, she had.
That’s also why I commented - emoji usage is very confusing in some instances. Our recruiter took it as a fairly chauvinist comment, but maybe it was meant a different way.
They were a marginal candidate, other comms weren’t great, this became one of the final factors.
Generally I think emoji usage in comms to a recruiter or hiring manager is risky, regardless of emoji chosen.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They are helpful because they are unclear. Except their usage is often too unclear for the recipient. If that praying emoji after a request means they are praying for me to fullfil it? Or they just namaste me? Or they need that request fulfilled because they highly depend on it? If someone tags my message with a clown emoji - does that message brought extreme joy to them or should I find them to talk face to face w…
I thought the praying emoji is a stand-in for thanking someone.
It's a clear import from the American culture here and while I can infer the meaning from the context, I doubt everyone would. Especially considering it's "Folded Hands" and not "Praying" and some sets have a... very strange picture for this emoji: https://emojipedia.org/google/android-5.0/folded-hands
PS holy shit, there is a WikiHow article on it's meaning and how to use it. While there is a lot of stuff on WH, the mere presense of that article adds to my position.
https://www.wikihow.com/What-Does-the-Praying-Hands-Emoji-Me...
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> I use the thumbs-up to quickly say "OK", too, but only with my friends. Depending on the age of your friends and the context, that could be causing misunderstandings too. "Thumbs-up emoji" can be read as a very passive-aggressive response outside of a work setting! The important thing though is that words also cause confusion; emoji aren't uniquely ambiguous. Ideal communication is multi-modal; emoji are very often…
> Depending on the age of your friends and the context, that could be causing misunderstandings too. That's why I only use it with my friends. The meaning in my social circle is very clear because we all use it for exactly the same purpose. Of course emojis aren't the only ambiguous communications. Words can be as well, although you can almost completely eliminate ambiguity with words. It's hard to do that with emoji…
> although you can almost completely eliminate ambiguity with words
But maybe I'm just not skilled enough to do so :)