HOW TO AVOID A JOB OFFER
By Terence Fane-Saunders
Chairman and Chief Executive, Chelgate Ltd, September 2003
Every day at Chelgate we receive a bunch of job applications, most by
e-mail, some by letter, or occasionally a fax. Any of these are fine. But
what constantly astonishes me is the high proportion that seem to scream “Don’t
hire me” .
The fact is, your first approach is your shop window. If there’s
nothing there, or if what we can see is third rate and obviously faulty,
we won’t be buying. We won’t even be browsing.
Let’s start with e-mails. Yes, there is a culture which says that
e-mails are informal, quick and relaxed. If you’re e-mailing a friend,
you may not worry too much about typos, spelling and grammar. But an approach
for a job is not an e-mail to a mate.
At Chelgate we expect people to be professional in all their communications.
A careless mistake in an e-mail can do just as much harm as a mistake in
a letter or a press release. An e-mail that suggests the writer simply
can’t spell, or that he or she has not even a nodding acquaintance
with the rules of grammar, tells us immediately that they won’t fit
in at Chelgate.
Any employer likes to believe that the prospect of working there is important
to the people who approach them. But when the approach is casual and ill
thought-out, when the communication has obviously not even been proof-read,
then it says quite simply that the applicant is not really interested.
You can guess what happens to the application.
One certain clue that the application has not been proof-read is when
half way down, it refers to us by an entirely different company’s
name. It happens a lot. Clearly something has gone wrong in the mail-merge
for the mass mailing; but it somehow doesn’t make us feel too special.
Then of course, there are the applications which tell us nothing. For
example : “I’ve seen your web-site. I think you’re great.
I’d like to work for you”. That’s it. Nothing else. I
don’t know whether I am expected to respond with an offer of a directorship,
or of a spell as a work experience student. As you can guess, we offer
neither.
Or again, the e-mail which recently demanded : “ What vacancies
do you have?”, expecting that I will outline every hiring need, from
top to bottom of the firm, to this anonymous person. In fact, at Chelgate,
we seldom fill “vacancies”. What’s more likely to happen
is that we stumble across someone so good that we are determined to find
a place for them here. Sometimes we can’t do it immediately, but
we wait, we stay in touch, and when there’s an opportunity, we talk
again.
A lesser irritant, but still not a good idea is the person who gives a
one line description of themselves, with an offer to send a CV if we are
interested. Why not send it the first time? It makes it easier and quicker
for us, and if you’re looking for a job, isn’t that a good
idea?
Wit and originality can work, but it’s a high-risk strategy. One
younger member of our team blasted her way into a job here with an application
that was, without doubt, one of the cleverest, best presented and most
amusing approaches we had received in years. But for every application
like that, we get twenty which attempt to be witty and original, but are
simply cringe-making or embarrassing. If in doubt, for heaven’s sake
play it straight.
The fact is that the jobs market in the PR industry right now is very
tight. Any good firm will be receiving many more applications than it possibly
needs, and plenty of these will be from attractive, well-qualified candidates.
Even to reach the interview stage, you’ll need to seem exceptional.
When faced by such an abundance of choice, prospective employers will allow
even the smallest negative to rule a candidate out. So it’s a good
idea to ensure that your initial approach reflects all the qualities you
think that employer will require. More than half the approaches we receive
fall at that first very basic hurdle.
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