Dear Applicant,

When you respond to an internet ad for employment, remember to treat it as you would a regular inquiry. First impressions mean a lot, especially if you are a borderline hire.

Try to avoid sending emails from addresses that are sexual or juvenile in nature. This is especially true if you setup your email to be from a cute pseudonym like “Lollypop Girl” instead of your real name. There are many free services out there, so if you don’t want to give out your personal account, why not sign up for a Yahoo account or something using a more innocuous moniker.

Remember to spell-check and proofread your resume. This may seem obvious, but yet there are still a few out there with spelling mistakes and verb tense errors.

Please also spell-check your initial email. Treat it like you would a cover letter. And if you are going to write in there that you are an editor with 25 years experience who prides him/herself on your excellent work, please make sure that I don’t see 3 mistakes just in skimming your letter.

Also, make sure you read all of my instructions. Most people are able to follow them, and I think that they are pretty obvious as long as you actually READ. Not submitting something I ask, attaching something in the wrong format, or forgetting to attach at all, are signs that you lack attention to detail. In the instance that your writing is borderline, I will remember that I had to remind you 3 times to attach a resume, that you forgot to submit one of the entries, and that you spelled something wrong. I will then decide that you are not worth the trouble. If you couldn’t get this stuff right when you’re trying to make a good impression, you’re only going to get worse, and you’re a waste of my time.

And finally, please don’t take the liberty of shortening my name to “Jenny” after two correspondences with me. This hardly makes us good friends. The best advice is to follow the lead of the person signing their name—if I sign it Jenny, then by all means, follow suit after a few exchanges. I do the same if I notice you go by Steve instead of Steven, or Joe instead of Joseph, or Bill instead of William. However, I would never shorten the name unless the other person did so first. That said, I happen to hate the name “Jenny”. I am not a Jenny in any way, and much prefer Jen. If you had to err, I’d much rather you called me Jen. Again, if you’re borderline, I’ll probably hold this indiscretion against you.

Perhaps this seems a bit harsh, but when you put out an ad and get dozens of responses, you tend to notice a pattern. The ones that commit one or more of the errors noted above tend to fail our initial test screening completely. The ones we wind up being excited about are the ones where people are able to follow simple instructions, spell-check, and READ!

Please keep these things in mind as you apply for your next position. Perhaps then you won’t have to wonder why no one hires you.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Jennifer (not Jenny)

Posted at 10:29 AM |