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In part one I discussed the fact that when a job opens up EVERYBODY applies for it. Unfortunately for the few that are just the type of candidate we want to see there are sometimes hundreds of people we don’t want to see. The reality of it is they are wasting every body’s time. What do you care right? Wrong!
What it really means is that the person who has to hire someone is now very distracted from seeing your good work or application due to volumes of not so good work and applications. In some cases it’s worse as there are hand written applications, CVs, notes and a whole range of interesting items job seekers will choose to try and get attention.
The reality is this. My method is to create three piles of applications as quickly as possible. Pile one is for applications that will get fully read, pile two is for applications which may get looked at if pile one applications don’t stand up under scrutiny and pile three where the application is not likely to ever see the light of day again.
It may sound cruel but if I have two hundred applications and I spend as long as sixty seconds to glance through each I’ve just spent three and a half hours of my day. Half my day just to gather the ones that I want to read. So I go through them even faster that sixty seconds.
How do you get noticed! You always have an opening line or cover letter which is short and sweet and to the point!. The first line is more important than people realise and it needs to convey quickly the 5Ws. If I’m interested I will read further. If I’m not interested in that you’ll end up in Pile Three. Not good.
So here is a real example of how to end up in Pile Three even though you may have experience and be THE person I’m looking for. This arrived via email only and was only addressed to the Sales Department.
Hi my name is Xxxxx Xxxxx 19 and I was wondering if you are taking any apprentices on, I have already done 2 years as an electician apprentice but only working for a one man band so the amount of commercial work or industrial is limited to the odd one every couple of months. I am currently in my second year at college and filling in my log book on a day release course at Xxxxx Xxxxxx College in Xxxxxx Manchester.
I have passed all previous exams and am currently working towards my level 3 knowledge doing testing and inspection and fault finding which should be completed by July. I have had a variety of work with my boss at present such as burglar alarms, fire alarm and emergency lighting systems, heating systems, three phase and single phase installation although three phase has been on a more additions to alteration on existing installation as work base is mainly domestic properties. I also have experience of regular periodic testing and fault finding.
The reason i am asking is that with mainly domestic propeties on the work base i am finding it hard to gain the evidence and also expirence needed to complete my log book and will hold me back on qualifying, also the pay rate i am recieving is below minmum wage and want to gain more commercial expirence for the future and also have the more likely possibility of having a job at the end of apprenticeship with a well established company.
Thanks hope to here soon
Spelling and grammatical issues aside the last thing I want to see is someone who is slagging off there current company, or boss, or supervisor. Why? Simple. Whether you like the people you’re working for or not it’s there business. They are the ones that get up early, lose sleep when things go wrong, work long hours after everyone else is gone home, etc, etc, etc. Bitching and moaning is a guaranteed trip to the Third Pile.
So let’s suppose that you get noticed and get called into the interview. What next? Read Part 3 coming out shortly.
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