If you've been playing along with the home version, you know that I am looking for steady work and that Alison Doyle has kindly indulged my blog posts about the hunt. Well, in an ironic (!) turn of events, I found myself in the position of HR screener this past week over a job opening posted on my blog.
You will note that I am (a) clearly a noob at soliciting job applications and (b) have only asked a few basic things of potential applicants. "Read the site," I implore. "Tell me how you'd contribute" and "let me know how you envision us working together."
Now, I've been writing that website since Q4 of 2003. That is about two lifetimes in Internet years, so I have a huge emotional investment into it by this point. With the exceptions of guest exhibition reviewers, whose articles I still have to edit and format, every word on the site is mine. It represents thousands of hours of my best efforts--both published and on the administrative side--and I am, quite frankly, nervous about giving anyone else the "keys." So when I say "Please tell me x, y and z," it's not really a polite suggestion. I actually want you, Applicant, to reassure me that you're not plotting to breeze in, disregard my master plan and start butting heads with me at your earliest convenience.
I have been absolutely swamped with applications (no surprise) and here's the thing: only one of the respondents thus far made any attempt whatsoever to tell me how s/he could lighten my workload and contribute to the website's success while keeping my vision in mind. I've read a lot--too much--about "I, me, my" accomplishments and nearly nothing about the key issue, namely what's in this for me?
Does that sound selfish? Maybe, coming out of my mouth. I'm not a Big Corporation. I am not even the owner of my art history website, and so can't truly appreciate the personnel concerns of an employer. But, for the first time in my working life, I've seen the other side of the hiring fence and it's sort of an ugly, cyclone model with weeds growing at its base and tons of blown litter stuck into its innumerable wire rhombuses.
Lessons Learned
You will note that I am (a) clearly a noob at soliciting job applications and (b) have only asked a few basic things of potential applicants. "Read the site," I implore. "Tell me how you'd contribute" and "let me know how you envision us working together."
Now, I've been writing that website since Q4 of 2003. That is about two lifetimes in Internet years, so I have a huge emotional investment into it by this point. With the exceptions of guest exhibition reviewers, whose articles I still have to edit and format, every word on the site is mine. It represents thousands of hours of my best efforts--both published and on the administrative side--and I am, quite frankly, nervous about giving anyone else the "keys." So when I say "Please tell me x, y and z," it's not really a polite suggestion. I actually want you, Applicant, to reassure me that you're not plotting to breeze in, disregard my master plan and start butting heads with me at your earliest convenience.
I have been absolutely swamped with applications (no surprise) and here's the thing: only one of the respondents thus far made any attempt whatsoever to tell me how s/he could lighten my workload and contribute to the website's success while keeping my vision in mind. I've read a lot--too much--about "I, me, my" accomplishments and nearly nothing about the key issue, namely what's in this for me?
Does that sound selfish? Maybe, coming out of my mouth. I'm not a Big Corporation. I am not even the owner of my art history website, and so can't truly appreciate the personnel concerns of an employer. But, for the first time in my working life, I've seen the other side of the hiring fence and it's sort of an ugly, cyclone model with weeds growing at its base and tons of blown litter stuck into its innumerable wire rhombuses.
Lessons Learned
- Real, live human beings read cover letters.
- Two (or three, or, please have mercy, you fiends, FOUR) page cover letters can suck the very life out of the person whose job it is to read them. Less is definitely more on the other end.
- Cut to the chase, already. Let the person reading know, in so many words, that you have done your research on _________(insert employer here) and are prepared to bring thus-and-so to the party.
- In other words, your cover letter? It's not really about you. You are, of course, its subject, but to truly get someone else's rapt attention the focus of your letter should be on how you'll benefit them.
