the case 💼 for emojis in the 🏢workplace
The year is 2020. Coronavirus has hit our society hard. We’re wearing masks, wondering when this will all blow over. On top of that, there are viral videos being pumped out every week of our society being racist, and generally just ignorant.
Some things look positive, other things not so much.
One thing, however, remains certain:
Emoji usage is on the rise 📈
According to emojipedia, the emojis most representative of 2020 were:
🦠 Microbe
✊🏿 Raised Fist: Dark Skin Tone
You can probably guess why.
It’s intuitive.
We have now reached a point in our society where these two icons can practically summarize an entire year.
Let’s take a look at how we got here.
🌎 Lingua Franca
Lingua Franca refers to “a language that is adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different”.
According to Wikipedia, it can also mean “bridge language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language”
People often refer to English as the Lingua Franca of the modern world. Some call it the Global Lingua Franca. Search it up for yourself and see:
While it’s hard to dispute Google, I am here to make the case that there’s a 🆕 language that should also be recognized as a Global Lingua Franca.
And I’m not alone:
🗓️ A Brief History of the Emoji
Take note of the 2017 entry, aka the literal definition of Lingua Franca. You can see all the ways that the emoji have seeped into our lives over the years. From simple objects, to personified faces, to diverse skin tones, to inclusive and open-minded representations, all the way to → 🦠 + ✊🏿
Believe it or not, we only made it here because of Japan, where all the great innovations in fun come from (sushi, wii, pacman, etc). The word “emoji” is actually derived from the Japanese words “e” (for picture) and “moji” (for character).
The Japanese were the first to adopt the emoji in the early 2000’s, and Steve Jobs made sure to include a special Apple-designed emoji keyboard on the first iPhone in 2007 in order to win over this demographic. Once the iPhone reached the U.S., people were quick to trade in ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ for 🤷. The cultural impact was resounding:
2007: iPhone introduces the emoji keyboard to America
2017: America makes “The Emoji Movie”.
One decade. That’s how long it took.
And “The Emoji Movie” was actually profitable too, with a budget of $50M and a worldwide gross of $217M.
Today we see newer forms of emoji that have increased in popularity:
- Bitmoji (Snapchat)
- Memoji (Apple)
- Animoji (Also Apple)
🎁 Present Day
So the rise of the Emoji is pretty evident, but:
- Should these little guys really be used in a professional context?
- Why don’t we see job descriptions littered with emojis?
- Won’t emojis make a resume seem less legit?
These are all perfectly valid concerns, but fret not.
First of all,
Yes of course you can and should use emojis to enhance your professional image, but don’t just go adding a 💯💰 to your Goldman Sachs application. Start small, by including just one emoji on your LinkedIn, perhaps something relevant, next to your name. Check out the example below:
Notice how the ☁️ emoji relates to the “Salesforce” cloud. Pretty clever.
You’d be surprised how few people will flip out over an innocent emoji, and how effective a visual cue can be when describing your professional situation. As the saying goes… A picture’s worth a thousand words
Second of all,
Emojis DO EXIST in job descriptions! Sure, your average job description tends to be dry, but some of the most significant people in tech really know how to use emojis to create engaging content.
Seven Seven Six is a Venture Capital Fund created by one of the co-founders of Reddit. I’ve handpicked some screenshots from one of their recent job posts below:
Additionally, Alloy is a YCombinator-backed automation startup. Majority of their menu items are depicted by emojis:
Are you beginning to see a trend here?
Maybe there is no room for emojis in large incumbent corporations, however, reputable startups in the tech and VC space are embracing the Lingua Franca of the future.
So let’s synthesize what we’ve learned here.
Lastly,
Don’t be afraid to use emojis in your resume!
As we move into a a more remote-work culture, its important now more than ever, to find ways to inject personality into the digital professional experience.
Shameless self promotion, I know, but check out the auto-generated resume that came built in with my business degree, on the left ⬅️.
Compare, with a handmade resume I designed in Figma, on the right ➡️.
Which one shows more personality?
The most salient takeaway of this writeup: The Emoji Bullet Point List
Don’t just take my word for it. Let’s look at the numbers:
🌐 95% of Internet users have used an emoji.
💯 Over 10 billion emojis are sent daily.
📲 Over 900M emojis are sent every day without text on Facebook Messenger
🕊 ️Including emojis in a Tweet can increase engagement by 25.4%.
⬆️ Adding emojis to a Facebook post can increase the number of post likes by 57% and the number of comments and shares by 33%.
📧 56% of brands that put emojis in their email subject lines had a higher unique open rate.
Small businesses use the emoji bullet point list all the time on Instagram:
A screenshot of my Linkedin bio:
🏁 In conclusion
We don’t just like social media posts anymore.
We celebrate them, we love them, we’re curious about them.
Every day, the entire world is engaging with emojis on Facebook, Linkedin, and Slack. Your mom, your coworkers, and maybe not your boss, but your bosses kids, are all in on the emoji wave 🌊. This is a trend that is here to stay.
An entire generation has grown up communicating primarily through gifs and emojis, and now this group is entering the workforce. While doomscrolling on Linkedin, Handshake, or Indeed, the difference that will make them pause ⏸️, and reconsider 🤔 a position, might literally be the use of a single emoji.
I rest my case ✌️
~ Jay Chopra 🎼 🏍️ 🧘
