So I’ve been looking for a job for a while, and have exactly fifteen days to get a job and make six hundred dollars or I won’t be able to pay rent next month.
Then I find it- the perfect job. It’d be a paid position as an editorial intern at local weekly. Not only would I be working, I’d be attending seminars on publishing and encouraged to pitch my own story ideas. I’m qualified for it, and it’d be fucking great.
So I write up a well crafted cover letter to go with my polished resume and send it off.
Without spell checking it. I am sure that at least five words in that letter are riddled with glaring spelling errors. So much for that job.
DAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMN!!!
Anyone else have tales of stupid job search mistakes to make me feel a bit better?
I graduated from college with a degree in journalism, so of course I wanted to get a job at a small newspaper. With a job like that accuracy is supposed to be important, right?
I send along my nice shiny resume and a cover letter to the managing editor of a small newspaper, and a week later I call to see if it was received, hoping for an invitation to an interview.
Managing editor: “Hello, this is Ted D.”
romans: “Hello Mr. D. I am romans, and I sent you a resume and a cover letter regarding a position you have open as a general reporter …”
Editor: “Yes. I remember - you accused me of being Tom D., not Ted.”
romans blurts: “Oh no - please tell me I didn’t really do something so dumb.”
Editor: “Never mind. We’d still like you to come in for an interview. How about Thursday next week.”
No worries. I was pretty much garunteed a job at a retail store, but I made one mistake that took it away from me.
My friend was already working there and she informed me that they’re looking for people to hire. She told me that since she was working there, I could write her down as the recommendation. She’s one of the better employees and a recommendation from her would ensure that I’d at least have an interview.
So, I fill out their application form, and even spent more than a few minutes filling out the part where I had to write a short paragraph about why I wanted to work there. After all that was done, I went to hand it in and even spoke briefly with the hiring manager.
When after I spoke to her (it was only about two minutes) she said “That’s great! I believe I’ll give you a call in a short while for a full interview. This is your cell phone number, yes?” I said yes, smiled and left. Later, I got word from my friend that she was going to call me on Saturday (handed application in on a Thursday).
What do I do?
I go out, left my cell phone at home with it turned off, knowing perfectly well that I couldn’t get voice messages because I had that option turned off. So, hiring manager called. I didn’t pick up. She couldn’t leave a message. My friend catches me online and tells me that she called someone else and I missed out on a job. And there, I lost my first potential job.
But it’s not all bad. After another month or so of handing out resumes everywhere, I got a job at a food court styled restaurant and I get free food and $0.50 higher than the retailer would have given me.
Even if you miss out this one, which you might not, you’ll probably find something better. If it’s yours, it will be. If it’s not, you’ll find something else.
I didn’t work at all summer before last.
I sent out a short generic cover letter and my CV to almost every company in town via a BCC email. So far so good. Forgot to attach the documents. Proceed to die of embarassment. Resend the mail saying “sometimes it’s monday every day of the week” and attach the cover letter and the cv. Start getting mails back during the afternoon saying “if you want to work for company XYZ, then I suggest you send them an email”. I had attached the wrong cover letter, one written for a specific position at a specific company in town. I replied to the (thankfully few) people who responded commenting on it, simply saying “please excuse my cock-up, luckily I have a year or two of my education left, hopefully I will learn something” or thereabouts. Most of them took it cheerfully enough, but amazingly, noone contacted me about a job.
The most embarassing part of all was that I emailed from my school address, therefore risking damaging the schools name in the town. Ick, ick, ick. They all seem to have forgotten about me now two years on though, I just got a job last week. No, this company wasn’t on the BCC.
When I interviewed for my current job, I was asked for a list of references. Thinking myself very well prepared, I promptly handed him a printout of address of apartments I’d planned on looking at that afternoon. After leaving the interview, I headed out apartment shopping, only to discover that I still had my list of references, but no longer had the list of apartments. Too embarrassed to go in immediately and explain, I went home and composed an email explaining the mistake and expressing my enthusiasm for the job. I was told later that the reason I was chosen over the others was because of the enthusiasm in the e-mail.