Why Blind Copying Recipients in Emails is a Good Idea

Recently I received an invitation to a Zoom meeting/interview, and it was for a volunteer board position which I had applied for. It made me feel good, knowing that I had at least got a chance for the interview. Well things then started to go a little off when I noticed things about the invite that started to raise some flags for me given, I am also involved in IT security.

Here are the issues that I found with the invite:

1. This interview was going to be done via Zoom, which didn’t bother me at all. What did bother me was there were three applicants for this position, so there was one zoom invite and each person had 15 minutes for their interview before the next person was to sign-in.
1. It would have been a better idea that each interview was done via a separate zoom invite so that the applicants didn’t know who else was going for the position.
2. 15 minutes is not a lot of time to answer questions about a position, given there was no job description ever provided. Sure, a Treasurer position you can figure out the basics of the position but is there a term, and of course a lot of the other things. What is really required of the Treasurer?
3. What is stopping the rest of the individuals that are being interviewed to sign on early just so they can watch the other person getting interviewed.
2. The invite to the Zoom meeting was sent to everyone and the applicants were not blind copied but included in the main address, which now shows each person who else has put their hand up for this position.
1. If you are doing something like this, it would be best to blind copy each of the applicants so that they don’t know the email addresses of the other applicants. It also is best when you are sending an email to a group of people that don’t know each other, besides they are all members of one group. This is also an HR level confidentiality issue of providing email addresses to a group of individuals that don’t know each other.

So, the basic courtesy when you are sending an email to a bunch of people that do not know each other is to blind copy them instead of putting each of their email addresses in the to area. Also, if you are going to be interviewing different people, I would really recommend that there be three different invites sent out to three different Zoom meetings. It might mean a bit more work for the individuals doing the interviewing, but at least then each person has their own meeting and not part of another person’s interview.

Blind copying people in emails is always a good idea when you don’t want each person to know who else has been included, and it is also a good security measure so that email addresses cannot be shared with others or possibly compromised if another person’s email account is compromised. So, next time you are wanting to talk to a group of people that probably don’t know each other, I would blind copy everyone to ensure that privacy and security is part of the communication.