Comment by gingerlime | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gingerlime | Hacker News Reader

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Having reviewed hundreds of job applications recently (for three completely different roles at my company), I would generally say candidates should focus on the cover letter / email. Most applicants won't even get their resumes read at all if their cover letter or emails aren't good.

I was quite shocked how many emails and cover letters from candidates were 100% generic, had spelling mistakes, highlighted irrelevant skills, didn't respond to basic questions on the job ad etc.

My top tips would be (in this order):

* READ the job ad carefully.

* Write an email / cover letter that 1) shows that you've read it. 2) is specific to both the company and the role you're applying for. and 3) answers all requirements on the job ad.

* Try to focus on what makes you a good candidate for the role and company. The focus should not be on your skills however, it should be on the required skills that the company needs, and how you could fit.

* Read the job ad again :)

* If possible, adapt the resume as well to highlight those areas of good-fit. Or at least highlight them on the cover letter/email, so the person reviewing your application would even be interested to read your resume...

As a professional resume writer/editor, I appreciate your comments. Excellent advice. I would say however, there remains a considerable amount of debate about the CL, even in editing and/or hiring circles. I work out of Shanghai, China and although my global clients are individual job seekers and academic aspirants, I keep in close contact with some local Fortune 1000 colleagues. I have had many say to me they spend zero time on the CL and only scan the resume quickly. It behooves the writer, if at all possible, to find out from the employer if a CL is even worth it. Writers may spend valuable hours on something which is given no attention.

Enjoying the discussion here.

Vince Fulco, CFA, CAIA vfulco[@]weisisheng.cn

That sounds great. However, after helping my girlfriend to send hundreds of cover letters and resumes crafted for each and every position and all you get back is generic reply, e.g. "Dear applicant, we are receiving a large amount of application. If we decide to invite you for an interview, you will hear back from us within 8 weeks." and that's it, I'm really questioning this strategy. It is so time consuming that it effectively reduces your chances just by sending low quantity of applications. I think you can't send more than 6-8 of those per day if you work on this full time and it gets quite depressing after a couple of months.

When intently looking for a job, I segment leads into three groups depending on how much I think I would enjoy the job. The first gets a generic cover letter and generic resume. The second gets a custom cover letter and generic resume. The third gets a custom cover letter and custom resume. Perhaps an approach like that would give the best of both approaches.

Yes, I totally agree this makes the most sense.

I think that even one quick sentence or a few tweaks to make the application look more personalized, can go a long way to getting on top of the list though. e.g. something as simple as "I love what you guys are doing at <company name>" / "It seems like a great place to work with like-minded people at <company name> on <project name mentioned on the job ad>"... not to mention simple formatting, avoiding typos and spelling errors etc :)

And of course, even if you write the best resume or cover letter, there are others who would do the same, and perhaps are better qualified. Or did an even better job at it... Sadly, we also had to reject candidates who spent time writing good cover letters and had good resumes. You can only shortlist as many people, and some are bound to get rejected however great they may be.

Huh...interesting. I don't think I've ever sent anything except a URL to my resume, along with a very generic subject that might mention a specific job posting...or not.

Maybe that 'forces' the receiver to read my resume?

I don't know your geography, industry or role - but - as a hiring manager for developer roles - generically - if I have to plow through 200 applications to find 25 candidates to screen to find 10 interviewees to fill two positions in any given month, I would not read your resume.

I am not saying that your approach is a bad one, but I wouldn't be "forced" to read your resume.

Thanks for your feedback.

I am in the SF Bay area, and I do (and have been doing what is now called) "devops".

The instructions at the end of my job postings are pretty clear: use email to send resume and cover letter in PDF or text, in your cover letter describe an interesting technical problem that you solved.

The cover letter is a writing sample: I want to see how well you communicate in written English with a presumably limited time budget. Lots of documentation gets written that way; it's directly relevant. Deeper than that, what people think is interesting - or technical - is a clue as to their overall technical depth.

Getting the resume in .docx means that they aren't so great at details.

I'd +1000 this if I could!

> Getting the resume in .docx means that they aren't so great at details.

:) I also discovered this to be true even when we didn't require the resume to be PDF formatted on the ad.

And a fantastic point about testing your writing skills as early as the initial email (and with a limited time for each job application, but fairly high stakes). Couldn't agree more.

Thanks for writing this.

It's very difficult to synthesize all the resume advice one receives though. I've actually been told more than once not to spend any time on the cover letter because no one will read it, and that in fact if I include a detailed cover letter I may look clueless.

And, honestly, it is a little hard to understand the point. Aren't I supposed to customize my resume itself to each role, and use it to show how I'm a good fit? What exactly is the purpose of duplicating all that in a second document?

Even without a cover letter, you need to write an email and attach your resume? If this email is being read by a person, then this email is therefore the most important thing to even get a chance of your resume being read.

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