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How Not to Get a Job
Wednesday, December 12, 2007 — posted by Sarah
We currently have two job openings, so I am getting resumes. Lots of resumes. Resumes by the pound.And the vast majority of applicants are making some really dumb mistakes. For instance:
- No cover letter. A resume sent without a cover letter tells me that the applicant is not sufficiently interested to invest a few minutes in writing a decent cover letter. If you don't care enough to write a cover letter, don't bother applying.
- Cover letter for the wrong position. Of the resumes that did arrived with cover letters, about one third (!!!!) referenced a position at a different company. Several letters arrived looking something like this:
I am very interested in the position of [Not Our Position Name], especially since I am so interested in the [Not Us] industry. As you can see from my resume, I am very detail-oriented.
It's not good when your resume makes me snort.
- When your phone rings, don't sound hung over when you answer it, especially if the phone rings at a time when you have arranged to be interviewed by phone.
- When asked what you know about the company during an scheduled interview (as opposed to a random call), the correct answer is not, "Uh, I haven't really had time to look at your web site." If you're not motivated enough to do 10 minutes of research when you're looking for a job, what do you think that tells me about your future job performance?
Happily, we also have a couple of excellent candidates, and I will try to put up a post on How To Get a Job after the holidays.
Labels: jobs
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