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Comment by shmageggy | Hacker News Reader

I thought "Please find attached herewith my resume for your kind perusal" was a joke but apparently that's how this person really responded. Recruiters: how does this forced, over-formal tone affect your impression of a candidate?

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Not at all. When we have an opening I get dozens of those a day. I honestly skim them to see if there is any relevant information (there usually isn't)... and then go straight to the resume. So the language just doesn't register with me, at least not consciously.

Well done versions include a couple of nuggets of information telling me why I should open that resume, but that's surprisingly rare.

I am guessing that the student in question was from India. That's how many Indians write official/business letters; likely a relic of the colonial times.

The other student was an international student, his English overall was quite formal. Really lovely guy though :)

I suspect the other student was more susceptible to this sort of thing since he was a non native speaker. I'd be curious to see if it would've worked on an American.

Speaking as an Indian who's had the opportunity to try this sort of thing on various Americans (and a lone Australian), it would've worked. The success of the attack probably has more to do with the susceptibility of each individual victim than their specific native language, though (and this is a sweeping generalization) many Indians do tend to have greater deference to authority (real or imagined) than their American counterparts.

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