Sunday, December 27, 2009

Forwarding resume? Read me once

I was happy to see a mail from HR stating recruiting freshers. Its been long time, I couldn't give any sweet news to our college alumni . It took me 5 minutes to read and understand the requirement and another 5 minutes to forward it to groups.
Next day morning, as expected there were hundreds of resumes. I smiled. Forgot to mention, requirement also said to give resume in hard copy! that makes me to choose and print selected resumes and submit to HR dept. Early morning, I had some other important mails from my pizza-lover friends and few more important work; so decided to check them later. Like any other work, once you postpone, you will forget it :) Same thing happened with me too, and next day evening I could find time to read them. Believe me by that time, my mail box was full 3 times which has an approx capacity of 100 MB.
It was beginning of my bad day when I started reading these emails. It was mentioned in English clearly that minimum 60%. I requested to mention something in subject line, because outlook can identify and separate it from other mails. I felt bad by checking only 30-40 resumes. I was forced to select only few as I had more than 2000 resume. When i decided to do so, it took me hardly 10 seconds to reject each one :(
It took me lot of time to digest that people are loosing opportunity which was very rare in recession period. I come-up with list of few points, which are off-course my own opinion about what not to do when you are composing an email for job.
  • Never Use CAPITAL letters: Got a question why? in corporate world, CAPITAL letter mean you are shouting to the receiver of email :). I hope you don't wanna shout on me to give an opportunity :). Same applies to RED text color.

  • Beware while addressing: Do you know to whom you are addressing? Doesn't matter, it this era, you will talk to many people whom you don't know. But if you don't know his/her name don't spell it wrong! People like me get irritated to see our name in different transformations. On the other hand, you never need to address everyone as HR manager, Senior Manager or blah blah. You don't know me, that's the fact. Be honest. Dint mess with something which you don't know.

  • Well, this was something which I never expected. "Dear ..... hereby I attached my resume. let me know the dates for interview." Mr. TDH, You are ordering me to give dates for you. What special reason I should find to choose you?

  • There were few points mentioned in the resume like criteria to send an email. Who cares? there are requirement in XYZ company forward resume!! Isn't it irritating?

  • Well, email IDs... ChocolateChweety@XYZ.com, DaringDanush@..., #$%@#.com, oh, how serious you are! Well this point doesn't make any difference honestly, but when I have to choose 100 out of 2000 I need one silly reason to reject :)

  • Few people send mass emails. Moment they get to know that there are openings in certain firm and get email ID for reference contacts will be updated and every other day, there will be mail to everyone. People don't even use BCC option, just send it to everyone. If you are not specific, why should I be specific to choose you?

  • When there are openings, like you many other people will be applying. Most of we update our resume with names like resume, updated resume, latest resume... looking at the resume, if I select two people and if resume name is same you know what will happen when I save them to my disk? Just like you, your resume is also unique so should be the name of resume.

  • Some people attach resume and send.What we can say it as FULLY empty apart from resume. This space is an opportunity to state if you have basic minimum criteria mentioned in requirement or not. utilize it properly. Few good fellows, i should in fact appreciate them, wrote a mail for two pages describing how hard they can work and bring organization to no. 1. My dear friend, when I don't have enough time to read my girlfriend's mail how can I ....

  • One last thing to mention, requirement was on Java and i struggled hard to see any word similar to Java in resumes. at most 40% of rejections were because they didn't mention anything about Java when they were expected to work on Java. And few fellows, sent two resumes with different technical background, Mr. Raj and Mr.Rajesh!

  • If it was mentioned to write something in subject line, it is to categorize you into particular group. Never ever skip this step. Most of email clients have facility where in if subject contains specific word then categorize them into certain group. HR would be dealing with recruitment always. He/she will never feel short of resumes. But if they are not categorized then they are useless.

As I mentioned, its my opinion and (bad)experience! Nobody approved it and if you got a job after doing all such mistakes, please don't complain on me, surely I dint select your resume.
Its too difficult to get an opportunity at this time. Also you never get a second chance to give first impression. Other way around is to create an opportunity :) but its not that simple! You may have to put your parents' money and your effort with lots of expectations. Remember the statement from old Spice telecom, Never miss an opportunity.