Running for Cover - I
THERE IS only one thing that is worse than a CV sent in without a covering letter and that is a covering letter that is riddled with mistakes. While some congenital career-suicide victims insist on sending their CVs by email in the pious hope that the recipient will magically guess what the sender wants, since there is no covering note, there are others that send in a sketchy two-liner asking the recipient to give them a job.
However after much coaxing and convincing some of those people that come to me are persuaded to actually write a cover letter that will get the attention of the recipient.
These young hopefuls then return a few days later in triumph saying that they got no response so what was the use of all the effort, and I tend to agree with them - until that is I see the copy of their application.
All the `rejected' applications showed a uniform shoddiness that guaranteed the failure of their objective.
Whether it was the preponderance of typos or the appalling inaccuracies in those letters where unrelated attributes were claimed, in direct conflict with the accompanying CV, the applications were all rejected one after the other. All because the applicants did not either proofread the letters or check carefully for alignment with the job on offer.
To aid the others that approach me for career guidance, I began collecting the faux pas so that I could list them out as an easy reference. Many of them are obvious, but they happen so often that it becomes a favourite pastime overlooking the obvious.
Foolishness never even got a clown a job in a circus and the examples below will, I hope prevent such foolishness from ruining the chances of several thousand others.
Trite is Tripe: We seem to have inherited a very cliché ridden letter-writing style from the British. In a country that invented the language, the usage has been dynamic in change. In ours, we continue to use ridiculous archaisms that confuse, bemuse and amuse. For instance:
*Sub: Sales executive: application for the post of - reg.
What is wrong with a simple: -
*Sub: Application for the post of a Sales Executive
Similarly we use what we believe is a flowery style (and therefore impressive we think) in the forlorn hope that the reader will immediately reach for his phone to demand your instant presence at an interview - such as:
*`I would delight in bringing my proven track record to a company of your standing' or,
*I request your goodself to kindly peruse my curriculum vitae and very kindly consider my candidature at an interview for which I can be present at any time convenient to your goodselves
Riddling an application form with such triteness and usages is considered abusage. Beware! Be crisp, and brief don't maunder on pointlessly
Misaligned Objectives: Most rejected applications seemed generic rather than specific. Several dejected (because they were rejected) applicants claimed abilities that were so far removed from what was required that their applications were invariably adding to the company revenues when they were sold to the wastepaper collector.
Please understand that the junior executive that opens your application is looking for a qualification match, not a jack-of-all-trades. For instance:
*`I am interested in cricket and have been selected for the training camp to be held in the city in December. In the mean time I would like to try my hand at being a customer service executive in your organisation as advertised.'
Which right-thinking HR functionary will hire a person at that post when he is certain that the candidate will leave - according to his own statement - in the next few months? Instead of that, if the candidate had said:
*`I find the prospect of being a Customer Service Executive challenging and feel that I would find my abilities both stimulated and honed by the experience of working with your company.'
It is likely that he would have been called for an interview and probably appointed.
Be Succinct: The only thing that is worse than a two-line cover letter is one that maunders on for several pages. The ideal letter is no longer than about four paragraphs, so make certain that what you say is directly related to the advertised position.
Talk about achievements and abilities that are related, not those that are not. Such as:
*`I would like to use this opportunity to say that I am an accomplished player of table tennis and was awarded the State championship in 1997'
*`You will see from my CV that I am a qualified hardware engineer, but I would like to add that I am also a prize-winning dog breeder.'
Be Original: One thing that guarantees disaster and a certain failure is something that I have seen only in India.
This takes the form of a grubby, cyclostyled piece of paper that is a template on which the applicant fills out the details.
These documents are generally printed on yellowing paper, often fraying at the edges and sold in bulk.
Needless to say that harried HR executives have been instructed by their superiors to route such documents to the shredder from where it finds its way to the packing department - being as they are unfit for sale.
Every application should be customised to the company for which it is addressed. Even competing companies should have separate applications.
Please note that every HR executive knows a `form' letter from an original one, and knows exactly where the shredder is.
Be Professional: The only kind of paper that you may use - if you use it - for a snail-mail application is the kind sold as "Bond" paper in white or light ivory.
Even in an email application, I have received applications on outlook stationery that was a kind of pale yellow with brown paw-prints all up one side of the screen.
Professionalism is about putting aside one's personal predilections and conforming to the accepted norms of the organisation to which the application is made.
ABHIMANYU ACHARYA
abhimanyu@india.com
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