In Part 1, I showed you the awesome email I got from someone who wanted to work for me. Although you can read the whole email here, I'll remind you of the highlights:
Although we all dream of writing the email of our lives and having the intended recipient email back within minutes, that's not what happened. Instead, it took me 27 days to write back. (I just checked). Why did it take me so long?
Like most people who have online lives, I get way too much email. And like most people who get way too much email, on a daily basis I need to more or less live in email-crisis mode -- wherein I write back to things that I deem "urgent" and delete or star everything else (yes, I use Gmail, and so should you). (For a further explanation of how I handle email and what I deem "urgent," see this article.) So once a month or so I go on email blitzes (a term I learned from @chloes) to slam through hundreds of emails in a few hours. A couch with good back support and a dark-chocolate mocha are near requirements for such feats.
So there I was, slamming through hundreds of emails, when I came across the one in question. Truth be told, the subject line looked spammy: "I want to work for YOU!" But when I opened it and saw that it included bullet points and a regular font (both signs that it was not a poor copy-and-paste job sent to thousands of potential employers), I started reading. Like a good book, the first sentence hooked me. And so I kept reading.
By the time I had finished, I wished I had a job to give the lovely young woman, but I didn't, and I wrote her as much. Verbatim, I said: "you are truly awesome and i loved this email. im sadly not hiring right but this ROCKED. could i post this on my blog if i took out some (you tell me) incriminating details? it's like you took a class to write a pitch letter this is so awesome."
For clarification: No, I didn't use a salutation or sign-off. And no, I didn't write with proper capitalization. And no, I didn't spell check or fix the grammar. If you're thinking right now, "Claire, is that really how you write emails to people? That looks like ungrammatical chicken scratch. Aren't you, um, like, an author?" let me reassure you with these words: At least you don't get emails from me. Seriously. According to my inner circle, my emails are some of the most difficult-to-decipher, garbled masses of letters to walk across this fine stage in recent years. But I digress. Back to her.
After I wrote her that aforementioned chicken scratch, she wrote me back. And if she didn't shock me with her news, then my name isn't Claire Diaz-Ortiz. In her email (keep in mind that only 27 days had passed since she initially wrote me wanting to work at Twitter) she told me that she was actually already working for Twitter.
Huh?!
Tune in next time for Part 3 (and remember, Part 1 is still here).
Follow Claire Diaz-Ortiz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/claire
If you want to be honest on a resume, then putting down "25 years' experience" can date you and work against you. Too many achievements can imply that you "cost and expect too much" because of the past. Being "versatile" can imply weakness in job history; and if you list ALL the jobs you've had over 50 years' time, then you're automatically "too old." Many interviewers squirm like it's a "shot-gun" interview, the type they'd rather not be having because of instant classification.
So in many ways, it does come down to how you "spin" yourself; no one else can do it for you better, but it may take practice. The world is full of "half-truths," which can work for or against you as well. But that's the way it is, assuming you even GET to an interview!
GRAMMATICALLY correct AND witty writing: If you HAVE it, flaunt it.
Once upon a time, all one needed to get a job was to be willing & able.Willing stayed the same. Able did not. Industry & technology required that those willing, need educated/trained to use the stuff made to make working easier. Sometimes, you'd get OJT (on-the-job-training). Sometimes not. That meant you weren't able without a proper education. More folks are educated than ever before. but now, they are Willing, Able and Jobless. Yes. Yes. I know. The economy, blah blah. That's a serious component. But one of the things we need to do, is come up with new things to do, since much of what we relied upon to keep us employed, is no longer feasible for us to be doing. While crappy CEO's who do shady business & hurt everyone, or unnecessary outsourcing, or simply the fact that what we once did is obsolete, means that all the technological advances, and all the apps in the world, aren't going to make way for employment and job security. That's something we must do. What good is technology if you can't afford to use it because you don't have a job? And it is frightening to think that job seekers are at the hiring mercies of those who only wish to hire someone who Tweets like them. Thoughts, anyone? I'm seriously at a loss, here. Help = good.
RichStine
Can you imagine writing to a potential boss, "We're both balding with comb-over... you can always trust someone with a comb-over?"
Or have we truly entered a Seinfeldian force-field in which everything's the opposite?
"Hi, my name is George. I have poor hygiene, no skills, and attitude problems."
"Fantastic! Can you start tomorrow?"