Melina Murray

I am in the midst of recruiting multiple positions.  Yes, I know, an anomaly these days.  I sift through emails and resumes every day looking for key words, things that stand out, something that makes the person a potential fit for the job, then calling those potentials to discuss the position.

What I am finding is a great lack of preparation and attention to detail.  I KNOW there are thousands of people out there who really, really need a job.

But.

These are the things that drive me crazy. (any applicants reading, please take notes!)

Initial Email/Resume:

• Addressing the cover letter or email to a competitor.
• Sending me a Word doc with track changes still on and lots of edits.
• writing sentences in lower case without any punctuation making the entire document a run on sentence
• Forgetting to use spell check. (I make typos all the time, but keep my eye out for that little red line before hitting “send”)
• Using IM speak “can u call me”.

First Contact: Let me preface this by saying I almost always set up a call ahead of time. At least 24 hours.

• Not knowing what the company does.
• Not knowing the job description.
• Telling me you just want a job.
• Being unable to map your work history/experience to the position for which you are applying.  (I called you because I saw a potential correlation.  I certainly hope you thought about it before applying.)

I know it is hard for many people right now. I do.  But because there are so many people out there, those who put in the effort to understand the position/company, communicate effectively/professionally and are able to explain why they are a fit will stand out dramatically from the rest.

And, last, but not least…  Please spell my name right when you reply.  It is right there- in my signature and in my email address.

This entry was posted on February 20, 2009 at 8:30 am and is filed under General. Tagged: applications, hiring, recruiting, resumes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.