Cover Letter

[montecristo#2]

Originally Posted by floydpink

A friend of mine in HR told me that above all, the cover letter should be completely free of errors. He said that when sorting through resumes, a misspelling gets you passed right over.

If you have any spelling or gramatical challenges, have someone proof read it.
(I think I may have made a gramatical error with proof read).

He went on to say that if your resume is the cake, the cover letter is the icing.

Of course, a proven track record or unique skill makes some spelling errors easier to overlook.

I couldn't agree with this more. We have been interviewing for several positions and one of the guys we brought in had one of the worst cover letters I have ever read. Spelling and grammatical errors, run on sentences. . .

Let's just say if it had been up to me, he would not have even brought him it. Strike 1 for sure.

In this economy, definitely spend some time on this one and if you are a little weak in grammar or spelling, have someone proof read it before sending it off.

[floydpink]

It's definitely a tough market and many overqualified people are taking less paying jobs to avoid losing their homes.

I'm not sure if it's going overboard or what, but my company puts you through a Gallup Poll where you have a few seconds to answer an array of questions that supposedly let them know if you will fit into the corporation's culture. I've heard these aren't cheap to do.

This is AFTER they read your cover letter and had at least 2 seperate HR people interview you and verified your background and sent you to pee in a cup.

A poorly put together cover letter is lucky to get a call back telling them they weren't hired, and I personally never heard of it.

If it were me, I would pay someone who is qualified to sit down with me and help me nail this thing.

[Volt]

We hire people for jobs in the 18K to 30K range for various positions. They take a total of 6 different tests/questionnaires prior to even getting a sit down with a human. Cover letters are very important as is the resume. People too lazy to even turn on MS spell check and grammar checker will NEVER be hired by us.

Many noted good points for the cover letter. Use their job description phrases in your cover letter, nice 20# paper or better (white or off white is best), tell them you WANT the job, etc. For the job I have now I had a professional interviewer look my paperwork over. One silly and simingly stupid trick she gave me. Paper clip the pages together with a colored paper clip. She said the secretaries and HR folks love them. Yours gets sucked to the top just so they can swap the clip out with a silver one. Go figure. Your name and address should be on every piece of paper you give them in case the package gets parted out.

As my post indicates, thank god my IT skills are better than my forum typing

Originally Posted by floydpink

It's definitely a tough market and many overqualified people are taking less paying jobs to avoid losing their homes.

I'm not sure if it's going overboard or what, but my company puts you through a Gallup Poll where you have a few seconds to answer an array of questions that supposedly let them know if you will fit into the corporation's culture. I've heard these aren't cheap to do.

This is AFTER they read your cover letter and had at least 2 seperate HR people interview you and verified your background and sent you to pee in a cup.

A poorly put together cover letter is lucky to get a call back telling them they weren't hired, and I personally never heard of it.

If it were me, I would pay someone who is qualified to sit down with me and help me nail this thing.

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by Volt

We hire people for jobs in the 18K to 30K range for various positions. They take a total of 6 different tests/questionnaires prior to even getting a sit down with a human.

Thank the Lord I am consultant/contractor, as I would have no desire to go through such hoops for a job. I guess if you are starting out, the ball is the employer's court and candidates mean nothing.

Sounds so demeaning to go through so many steps and get 18K salary. That's $9.00 an hour. Doesn't Papa John's pay that? No offense to your establishment, just talking in general.

[Volt]

Originally Posted by mosesbotbol

Thank the Lord I am consultant/contractor, as I would have no desire to go through such hoops for a job. I guess if you are starting out, the ball is the employer's court and candidates mean nothing.

Sounds so demeaning to go through so many steps and get 18K salary. That's $9.00 an hour. Doesn't Papa John's pay that? No offense to your establishment, just talking in general.

Sorry, we are a contractor to the public school systems. We can only pay what the school systems can afford to pay. Our people are paid what ever the school system would pay a teachers aid. We are also in very rual areas, which means some of this pay is top dollar for their area. You would be suprised at the resumes we get even for the 18K - 22K jobs right now. Peeps are looking for work.

As to the tests/questionaires..... Personality, math skills, situational ethics, Wonderlic test, etc. All required to weed out those that will not be able to perform or are unsuited to be around children. We actaully do less testing than many other companies I know of....

[floydpink]

Hate to say it, but your cover letter and resume can be spotless, but if you look like a schmuck, you ain't getting in if the job involves face to face sales in a lot of cases.

Now, what a schmuck looks like is purely interptreted by the individual job interviewed for.

What I'm trying to say, is a Goodwill suit and a teardrop tattoo under your eye won't work well in a Fortune 500 company, but might get you "hang around" status with the Warlocks.

Not fair? Probably not.