All my beautiful plans to write extensively about job hunting has all fallen by the wayside, as I’ve been forced to get up to speed very quickly at my new job. But I came across this article that I thought was excellent — Ten Worst Things to Put in Your Cover Letter. I’ve gone and added a few of my own to the list, at the end:

  1. Next to nothing
  2. Criticism of a prospective employer
  3. Personal stories
  4. Awkward language
  5. Someone else’s words
  6. Irrelevant experience
  7. Arrogance
  8. Wrong company name/wrong cover letter
  9. Cultural preferences
  10. Jokes
  11. Typos — total turn-off. Read your cover letters slowly and out loud before you send. Even read aloud the short email that you’re attaching your cover letter and CV to. I once dashed off a few sentences in an application email and sent it with the phrase “pubic health” instead of “public health.” It was horrifying when I discovered it after the fact. I didn’t get the job.
  12. Hyperbole — be precise and don’t give in to the temptation to “talk up” your experience. If you’re applying to the right job that’s the right fit, you shouldn’t have to exaggerate your work or experience. Besides, the interviewer will probably be able to tell if you’re over-selling.
  13. Only sentences that start with “I” — this might be a personal preference of mine, but I appreciate cover letters that use a variety of sentence structure. It just makes for an easier and more interesting read and it shows me that you’ve taken the time to craft a letter and not just provided me with a laundry list of things you’ve done.
  14. Name-dropping — if you talked to the brother-in-law of a professor consulted to one of the organization’s former managers, don’t include those names. You’re clearly reaching for a connection that you and the interviewer both know is tenuous at best, so just leave it out. Now, if you’ve spoken with a senior VP who encouraged you to apply, that name might be worth including if you’ve received his/her permission to do so.
  15. Irrelevant experience — just wanted to highlight #6 above. You only get 200-250 words in a cover letter, so make them count! Don’t tell the recruiter about the time you wrote for the school newspaper if you’re applying for a finance job.

More to come!

Here’s to hoping that you’ve all endured the East Coast Earthquake and Irate Irene with little lasting damage! I received a fake evacuation notice on my door, stayed out the storm in my Queens apartment, and the biggest drama of my weekend was watching The Day After Tomorrow on the night  before Irene and was convinced we were on the cusp of the next Ice Age ….

(It’s the dancing towards the end of this video that gets me …)

 

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