At work, we placed an ad in the newspaper last week announcing a job vacancy for a position, let’s just say that this position requires excellent communication skills (verbal and written) more than any other skill.
Now I don’t know what my boss was thinking when he told me I’ll be handling the applications (mesh 3arfeh shw dakhalni) anyway, I’ve been receiving all sorts of CVs with and without cover letters and the only thing I can say is that we’ll never go anywhere unless we start taking things like these seriously, here are a few things that got me shaking my head:
1. You don’t just toss your CV in an email and send it, no subject, no hello, no greetings, no dear sir no nothing! We’re not collecting CVs in a basket like charity.
2. If you work in marketing or sales, please don’t send offers at the careers email! Seriously, are you that desperate? You’re collecting emails from job ads and spamming them now? (And no it wasn’t automatically sent).
3. You don’t use “u” instead of “you”, “r” instead of “are”, and so on, in your cover letter. You’re writing a formal letter for God’s sake!
4. I think it would be better if you omit the “could you read my CV carefully?”
5. You send your CV from your email, not someone else’s, everyone has an email, the deadline is not in 5 minutes, get off your butt and go send your own CV, don’t tell me not everyone has access to internet and all that stuff, you can give your password to someone you trust and have them send it for you.
6. I’d prefer if your sender name is not “Lulu Lulu”, “big boss”, “rrr sss” or anything that sounds like “Queen Latifa” even if your name is on the CV.
7. When you say “my CV is attached” I should be able to find it with the attachments, I could be asking for too much here but I’d really like to take a look at that.
8. If you can read a font of size 7.5, good for you. Why would you want to torture others?
9. Don’t copy and paste your CV in the message body! I appreciate the formatting but please attach a file.
10. Why would you send me two CVs? Which one am I supposed to consider?
11. If you’re going to be including a photo of you in your CV, it would be better if it wasn’t one from a makeup ad, so you’re a makeup model or something, why would I want to see a black and white close-up of you with your hand on your cheek?
12. Windows 95, 98 and XP are not computer skills; don’t write them in a list with bullets and stuff to make your CV longer.
13. I never really got the “interests” section in a CV but if you must, “beauty issues” and “shopping” are not things that will help you get hired, and speaking of that,
14. “Internet browsing” is not work experience. How is that work experience?
15. Don’t you think that writing your GPA sounds better than writing “average = excellent”?
Now I know many people will be thinking “oh how arrogant of her to say that about people who send her applications”, well bite me, I just gave you 15 Dos and Don’ts, in my own way.
