Recently, I was hired at a company and their first agenda item for me was to craft and send out the rejection email to the people they didn't pick. Having been on the receiving end of these rejection emails lately, I was a little uncomfortable with this assignment. Having read through all the applications, I offer here a list of comments (many of them basic) in the hopes that this advice will save my dear (four) readers from receiving more rejection emails.
1. Greetings: Ok, first, have a greeting line. Don't leave it out, don't say "hi."
2. E-tiquette: If you are emailing your resume (as we all are), it's good to put the cover letter in the body of the email (unless otherwise instructed). Do not put the resume in th eemail body - you lose all the formatting. Also, you might be surprised how many people attached a cover letter and resume but put absolutely nothing in the body of the email. If you got an email with nothing in the body, would you respond? Me neither. So if you are attaching both, put something, even if it's "Dear X, Thank you for your consideration of the attached materials for the position of X at X. Sincerely, contact information." You're trying to get the reader's attention, not make them work to find out who you are (cause...they won't!).
3. Diction: You would not believe the grandiose and overused adjectives I read in these letters. Make your cover letter concise and confident but not ridiculous. Examples include "I'm depositing my resume for your review" (depositing?), "my wonderful work," "my enriching career," "I am just that nifty." WHAT? This careless word choices make you sound arrogant and moronic, not nifty.
4. Grammar: Of course this comes after diction. I read a sentence: "I am a worldly, sophisticated, articulate professional who isn't afraid to venture out of their comfort zone." I would never hire this person to do any kind of communication: "I" and "their" do not agree. "My" comfort zone would have been grammatically correct, although still a violation of rule #3 above.
5. Presentation: As with ensuring formatting (I'd recommend saving as a PDF), please realize your email address says a lot about you. Also note how your email displays - does it display your full name, just the email handle, or just your first name. Be aware of who you are saying you are to the potential employer. No one is really going to hire 'bsmooth69@whatever.com' for a responsible position - maybe for a position in a bar. If your subject line reads: "*sparkling* support available," you aren't conveying a very professional image. Also, make sure your fonts and colors are consistent with your professional image.
6. Inclusions: If you're applying for jobs in academia, use a 6 page C.V. by all means. If you're not, keep it to a page or two MAX. You can cut publications, conferences, and irrelevant positions and academic awards. Spend some time honing your language on your resume.
7. Explanations: If you're coming from a different field, explain why. Use your cover letter to explain how your skills transfer or how you are prepared for the new job. Don't make the reader guess. Also, don't beg. "I ask you to please consider me" isn't the way to begin a cover letter. On the other side, don't just dive in - find the happy medium and ease your reader in. Additionally, it can never hurt you to do some research on the organization. Thanks to Google, this is a piece of cake these days.
On the whole, don't give your reader any chance to dismiss you - grammar errors, or even worse - getting the name of the contact or organization wrong, make you an easy way to cull from the glut of applications the crappy economy has generated. Be confident and spend some time making a clear case for yourself, and remember what it's like to be in the reader's shoes. Good luck!
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