Non-cooking related rant
Since this is a cooking AND technology blog, it is time for a little rant.
In the role of hiring manager on behalf of one of my clients, I recently posted a part time job announcement. I got many resumes from people who had clearly not even bothered to go to the website of the company to see what the place does. Worse, the cover letters I received were mostly canned ones. Many applicants did not go so far as to bother to customize their canned letters. They left the terms "your company" and "the position" as is, rather than to translate them into the actual company name and position name.
As a hiring manager, I infinitely prefer the 4-5 sentence email explaining why the applicant wants to work at OUR company over some stupid canned collection of meaningless words that some professional job coach thinks will get you an interview. It won't with me.
COME ON FOLKS!
If we are going to pay you $15 or $20 per hour for a job that a temp agency would give you $8.50 to do, is it not worth your time to put a little work into a cover letter?!
Maybe go to the website and learn about what we do?
Sheesh!
In the role of hiring manager on behalf of one of my clients, I recently posted a part time job announcement. I got many resumes from people who had clearly not even bothered to go to the website of the company to see what the place does. Worse, the cover letters I received were mostly canned ones. Many applicants did not go so far as to bother to customize their canned letters. They left the terms "your company" and "the position" as is, rather than to translate them into the actual company name and position name.
As a hiring manager, I infinitely prefer the 4-5 sentence email explaining why the applicant wants to work at OUR company over some stupid canned collection of meaningless words that some professional job coach thinks will get you an interview. It won't with me.
COME ON FOLKS!
If we are going to pay you $15 or $20 per hour for a job that a temp agency would give you $8.50 to do, is it not worth your time to put a little work into a cover letter?!
Maybe go to the website and learn about what we do?
Sheesh!
On a related topic from H/T to my buddy Chris:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html
...and the other side of the same process is employers w/o the long-term good sense to drop a line saying, "We got your carefully-prepared application" or "Thanks, but you weren't chose."
Mom!
Are you typing one-handed instead of resting and recovering?!
Nicole
Hey NS, sorry about that. But at least they made it easy to weed them out. The guy that I like reading about hiring and interviewing is
www.asktheheadhunter.com and his book Ask the Headhunter. He has a shift in the paradigm in applying and interviewing. It is about 4 things to think about:
1. Do you know what the job is,
2. Can you do the job,
3. Are you willing to do the job, and
4 Can you make the job profitable?
If managers can give enough information about what the job really is, and if the candidate can think about the 4 questions and answer them honestly, then hiring would be better.
That is my 2 cents on tha t issue.
And wow! Move to CH? Neato. Also now I really feel like I missed out on that bonfire. That was a big pile of scrap wood! Lastly, how are the kitties?