How Not to Apply for a Job

Dear Prospective Employees,

As I look through your resumes to pass on to the Human Resources person at my agency, I’d like to give you some hints about what to do (and what not to do) when you apply for a position.

First, you need a cover letter. At this point, you’re just a name on a page. You can be discarded or chosen. Your cover letter should consist of several things: the date, your name and contact info, and where you heard about the position. Please do not open a Notepad document and write:

Hello I saw your posting and I want to be considered for a job.
Thank you,
Laylan

The above is not an acceptable cover letter. It’s short, not thought out, and you don’t even say what position you’re applying for! Your cover letter should highlight your experience and attributes that may not be on your resume: “During my college years I also worked full time as an office receptionist, so I am well-versed in multitasking and time management.”

Second, your resume. Listen up, you 2008-2011 graduates who have been/will be battling thousands of unemployed, experienced workers in the worst economy we’ve seen in a century: Your resume has to be strong so that you will stand out from all of the other resumes.  Do not use Microsoft Word and that little helpful paperclip to write your resume.  Start from scratch. Write down what you do, what you’ve done, and don’t lie.

Leave the objective out. No one cares about that anymore, and it’s quite silly looking. Don’t use big words that you used thesaurus.com to find. It makes you look pretentious <-- see what I did there?

Put your best attributes first. Proud of your 4.0 GPA? Put your education (and GPA) at the top. Proud of your experience? Put that first. Don’t be afraid to add in new categories: I have a category on mine called “Community Relations” that talks about my volunteer service, my internship… all of the things that I did above and beyond my work. This category got me my job. Why? Because everything in there showed that I had what it took to manage volunteers at this position, and that I worked hard.

SPELL CHECK. This is 2011. I remember in 1998 when we got our first computer, my dad LOVED spell check. He raved about it! So why are you not spell checking your document before sending it to a potential employer? Also, print it out and read it. If it doesn’t make sense to you, it won’t make sense to the employer. One I looked at today said, “I saw your posting on the sight” and another said, “Sincerely,” with no signature! Umm.. How can you claim that you’re detail oriented when you missed that?

Don’t put that you graduated high school in 1977- this is obviously not relevant to your “education” that we’re seeking. You’d be better off if you just left it off (as we can’t ask you how old you are, so why would you volunteer that information?)

Lastly: Don’t make the HR person call you for your references or employment information. I opened one today that said, *****References available by request*****. First, the asterisks are annoying. Second, No. I’m not going to request them. If you’re not giving me your references, you’re going in the discard pile.

You might think that your resume will stand out better if it’s on blue paper, or if you send it first class mail- unfortunately, the envelope gets thrown away first. Today, I opened all of resumes we received, flattened them out and put them in a pile. I did, though, put one on top: someone had sent a resume in a nice folder marked “Resume”, I thought it was too pretty to discard. She impressed me, so she got the top spot.

Good luck on your job search everyone! I would be happy to look over your resume before you send it out!