I am often baffled by some of the emails we get about hiring. I’m sure anyone else in a hiring position has horror stories (as well as comedies) to share and honestly, I’d love to hear them!
We’ve recently posted job listings on Craig’s List as well as our website and I’ve been bombarded by a combination of hilarious, awful, and simply irrelevant emails. Soooo, I thought, in the spirit of the moment, I’d post a small list of “Do’s and Don’ts When Requesting a Job”.
DO
-have a grown up email address; even if your friends email sexylover95@cutesie.com you should have one that is yourname@something.com to use for professional emails.
-use capital letters and punctuation… appropriately.
-proofread. Do not confuse “shift” with “shit”.
-let the hirer know you “get” the company; including details that demonstrate you’ve been to the business, looked through their website, etc, really makes you stand out!
DON’T
-use bizarre slang. Some of these emails have read like notes passed in seventh grade study hall.
-send your MySpace link unless there’s a lot on there that shows you’re right for the job. Do you really want a potential employer to know that you shotgunned 10 beers last night?
-say “u” instead of “you” or “l8ta”… I think that’s supposed to be “later”.
-say that the reason you want to work there is “to meet girls” or “to help me quit drugs”.
Do y’all have any application horror stories???
I was working in a college admissions office in a private college in Virginia and an application was submitted that had the official email address as RusselltheLoveMuscle85@yahoo.com. He also submitted that application for our highest scholarship, needless to say he was a standout applicant, but not for a good reason. I can only hope this email is no longer active and good ol’ Russell went onto great things.
I use to work in HR and the worst resume experience I had was when a woman’s email address was three curse words and she sent in a picture of herself. Made me laugh and immediately throw it away!
Do you really think it’s appropriate to judge people based on their email address? Yes I can understand disapproving of bad grammer and drugs, but do you really want 100 to think you woulndnt even consider hiring them because you disliked their email address?
I work in HR and have seen some interesting applications, but not nearly as interesting as the actual interviews. I’ve been asked on a date at least twice, when I asked one candidate how he managed stress he said that he would just find out where the person lived, go to their house and kill them, then I had one person who fainted during an interview and she said that she often faints in stressfull situations….we would have called 911 on a regular basis if we hired her.
Bad grammer? Ironic.