karmabond.com
I would've sailed right past that posting too.
Me neither. It screams SCAM at me. It'd be illegal in the UK, as well.
If they're finding you through an advertisement, that means that they didn't know or care who you were until they read the ad. At that point, yes, it's a bit hard. It's not hard because they need to regurgitate facts you gave them—that's the easy part. The hard part is being enthusiastic in the "I always wanted to work for you; I know exactly what you do, and I know that it's exactly what I want to do, even though I've never used any of your products or services" sense. It's too emotionally draining to write ten of those in a row.
For most jobs, this isn't important.
Never trust advice from recruiters.
If you're applying for a position on CL (or, really, anywhere), it is _absolutely_ worth spending five minutes doing _something_ that shows that you've actually read something - the job description, the company's bio, their videos of their technology, something. I'm reading a lot of people arguing their way out of doing so below, and I'll tell you that I'm happy for your ability to argue but you will miss out on great things (and you can hardly ever know great things from a job description) by not spending five minutes. I don't care about a fancy or detailed cover letter, but if you just submit a generic sentence and a resume, you've done nothing to make an initial positive impression - which is why you're applying in the first place. This does not take a lot of work, it's just called being thoughtful.
You don't really know who's reading your submission - could be an HR person, could be the hiring mgr, could be the CEO - but every one of those people has a vested interest in finding somebody who gives a crap, and has limited time.
(And yes, the article is a waste of pixels.)
Some of them want only 2 pages, some of them want lots of details, with a capability matrix.
Some of them like personal touches like photos, some of them just want the meat and potatoes, and get annoyed at this crap.
Some of them get upset when you don't address them by name, some of them hide their name on the ad, and there is no way to get it.
Some of them like short cover letters, some of them want you to address every single point they bought up in the ad, sometimes stretching to 4 pages.
Some of them only want the last relevant jobs, some don't like seeing gaps anywhere, which leads them to suspect that you were in jail (WTF?).
This is why you can't take recruiters seriously, they constantly speak like they all agree, when they don't. They give out useless advice, that can actually disadvantage you if you deal with someone else.
I'm also not sure that counting applicants as a proportion of the unemployed in a city makes sense. I'm not unemployed, but I am looking for a new job. I also technically don't live in the city/district I work in.
That's not to say that those techniques won't work as filters, but the percentages quoted are basically just made-up numbers.
Edit: seems that localbacon isn't what it used to be... http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/22/jibe-localbacon-relaunch/
While I was at a job interview for one company, I was eavesdropping on the receptionist. Some people had decided to cold call the company to see if they could apply to any job openings. The receptionist calmly responded, that they weren't accepting any resumes at the moment, but any job openings would be posted on craigslist.
So yeah. While I imagine most cities are probably more bottom of the barrel stuff, in a select few cities craigslist is almost necessary for a job-seeker.
- Submit their resume but with a name only. You have to Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever to find the contact information.
or
- The employer will only receive contact information if he puts in a $1 security deposit in the prospective employee's bank account.
In any case, regarding the gist of the article, let me explain how job seeking works as a job seeker:
I send custom cover letters to each and every company that I apply to. This take at least an hour and often much longer per company: I read about the company, executive bios, executive bios on crunchbase, scan techcrunch articles, check glassdoor, google the company a bit, see what job I think I'd be interested in, etc. I then write a custom cover letter explaining my background as it pertains to their job and why I think I'd be a good fit for them.
When this works, it works well. On the other hand, I'd say 75 percent or more of phone screens clearly couldn't be arsed to read my cover letter before getting on the phone with me. If it's too much bother to read one page of text about a candidate before getting on the phone with me, then I'm not interested. Sorry. On the other hand, when deciding between offers a couple years ago, the fact that the person on the phone had read my cover letter and thought about what I said helped tip the balance in favor of Scribd.
ps -- netflix recruiters? The reason I'm ignoring your calls now is when I sent you a well thought out cover letter 2 years ago, you couldn't even be bothered to email back. People remember.
So when Alex whines that applicants don't send custom cover letters, well, the reason is simple: too much work since the vast majority of employers don't bother to read them. He apparently doesn't understand that job seekers have finite time and job searching is a triage process -- where can I aply that I will like the most with the highest probability of succeeding. So yes, it is difficult to invest a couple hours per company and even if you do, in the majority of cases, you will never hear back. Not even a simple, "Thanks for applying, we received your application, but we don't think you're a good fit at this time" email.
As for sending $1 to some website I've never heard of, hah. Alex must be out of his mind to think people would do that.
100% of the time I've been asked to do a phone screen, I've been given a resume but no cover letter. You can't count on the cover letter getting past HR.
However, HR did process the applications, and the result of that was that a manager with an open position would get a big stack of resumes on his desk every few days. The key word here being "resumes," rather than "applications." I never heard a manager say anything about reading cover letters, or saying things like "so-and-so's cover letter says he's interested in <blah>." When we met to discuss candidates, the only sources of information people mentioned were resume, phone screen, and interview.
So what's the point of the cover letter, you ask? I guess it varies. In my company, the cover letter was evidently only read (or more likely simply discarded) by HR, who had no input in hiring decisions. In a smaller organization, the hiring manager might see the entire application, including the cover letter, which the manager would most likely ignore. In a larger organization, ignorant HR folks might be making judgments about candidates' suitability for the job, and in that case the cover letter might mean a great deal, since the resume would be gibberish to them.
For me, I prefer to keep my cover letter to three paragraphs. One explains how I found the company and what job opening I'm applying for. One explains a little of my background. One explains why I think I'd be a good fit for the company and the job opening. If I know the person that will be receiving the cover letter, I address them directly, otherwise I come up with a generic salutation or sometimes leave the salutation off all together.
I like to keep the cover letter short enough to read in a few seconds while having enough information to let the person that initially goes through the resumes easily determine whether or not I'm a good candidate.
Scribd has at least one really, really fabulous recruiter. They didn't hire me, but not for that reason (and their reasons were good, at the time).
On the other hand, I can see why you wouldn't want to hire anyone who couldn't be bothered googling the company they are applying for.
Depending on the position, you could also leave the job ad off your website, and expect the candidate to cold call you. That wouldn't be great for screening developers, but it would be fantastic for hiring anyone who's expected to show initiative in interacting with people. Yeah ... developers have to interact with people too, but there's a balance to strike - they might just think you're idiots who can't be bothered editing a web page.
As another commenter noted, yes, it's far too draining to research a company and manufacture a B.S. cover letter. Look, we're professionals here. I applied to your position because it looks like a good fit for my skills. I'm sorry that you have to dig through others who spammed you with unrelated email, but that's really not my problem. Do you want you corporate ego stroked, or do you want a qualified applicant who will make you money?
Regarding the $1, all I can say is, "wow." I wouldn't touch that Craigslist posting with a ten foot pole. I would also immediately flag it as a scam. It reminds me an awful lot of the "job placement" companies I saw crop up back in the Tech Bubble Crash, who promised you access to thousands of jobs if you just pay their subscription fee. I really dislike companies which prey on the unemployed and desperate.
Agree completely. As far as I'm concerned, unless you really interest me, I should spend about as much time researching your company as you will reading my resume.
Okay, I really don't understand this line of thinking at all. I would genuinely like it if someone could possibly explain this.
As I said above, I'm a professional, you're a professional. I am offering to you my talent and wisdom which will earn you more than it costs you. You are offering to me money and (maybe) a pleasant working environment.
So we're entering into this on a level playing field. Why am I expected to do a bunch of research and write up a customized cover letter, other than to satisfy your ego?
As far as I'm concerned, this is a courtship like any other. I say, "hey, here's my resume, what do you think?" You say, "hey, I like it, here's what we're like, what do you think?" and we go from there.
The whole, "we demand a cover letter that makes our nipples tingle," thing strikes me as ineffectual middle-management HR B.S. which probably keeps a lot of great people from ever getting interviewed.
As someone who has hired many people I've learned that people with so little interest as to spend five minutes looking us up are typically generally lazy (even outside the context of our company) and specifically may be incompetent.
At the point of looking at resumes I have very little to go on. If the resume comes in with Kool Aid stains on it, and states that you'd like any job that pays, preferably working with hot chicks, I'm less inclined to spend much time with your resume. Everyone says they're a professional. Unless I'm desperate to hire someone, the burden of proof is on you. And the fact of the matter is if I'm getting 500 resumes, and 50 of them can point to having reverse engineered our object-model in high school, why does your resume asking "what is it that you guys do again?" merit a second look.
Maybe in a world where you're especially in demand, what you suggest is fine. If I get Sergey Brin or David Cutler's resume on my desk, I'll call them and let them know what we do. But if you're random dev -- well you need to prove you're not JUST a random dev.
And this really is relative. If you're applying for the most coveted dev role in the world, you need to show more in the resume than if you're applying to fix bugs in the Waste Management LOB app written in COBOL from 1979.
> 50 of them can point to having reverse engineered our object-model in high school, why does your resume asking "what is it that you guys do again?" merit a second look.
That's an unfair comparison. One indicates, presumably, direct technical experience with your product.
Between engineer A, who has X years of relevant experience and no cover letter, versus engineer B who has Y years of irrelevant experience, but an awesome cover letter, who are you going to choose?
> But if you're random dev -- well you need to prove you're not JUST a random dev.
That's precisely what my resume does. A flattering cover letter only serves to demonstrate my B.S. skills.
Now, I'll admit that I can certainly write a cover letter which is technically relevant. I will highlight my skills in particular areas named by the job listing.
However, it's been my experience that HR looks for utter bullshit on the resume, and manager types want to hear how awesome their company is. The funny thing is, I haven't heard of most tech companies, and most tech companies have pretty bland websites which are just marketing tools and don't tell me anything relevant to working at a company as a software engineer.
I dunno, I'm wildly jaded by both sides. I openly admit that I have a bug up my ass about H.R. because I've had too many problems with them on both sides: trying to weed me out for B.S. reasons (e.g. "would you say computers are more of a job, or a hobby?"), and preventing me from interviewing qualified candidates, while sending me godawful douchebags who can't even write a for loop.
He, in turn, wasted serious applicants' time who took time to write good cover letters to reply to his fake job listing. I guess, researcher's dilemma.