Re: re TW resumes

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM>]

John Glenn said:
>>HR person once told me ALWAYS SEND A COVER PAGE. That,
>>apparently is what gets read;

and d r answered:
>Apparently creativity in a cover letter doesn't cut it.

As a job applicant, I stopped sending cover letters years ago. My
rationale is that my resume (which is in advertising brochure format)
stands on its own. Since I've managed to remain gainfully employed
for all these years, I don't see where the lack of a cover letter
has hindered me. And yes, I've even gotten past HR using this
technique.

As a hiring manager, I've seldom seen a cover letter that helped
the job applicant's chances but I've seen lots of cover letters
that have hurt the applicant's chances.

The most frequent problem I've seen is with long, run-on sentences
(doesn't this person ever *breathe*???) followed closely by grammatical
errors. When I'm looking for a writer, I check *everything* for writing/
editing/proofreading skills. If you haven't the time to fine-tune that
cover letter, fergetaboutit!


Susan W. Gallagher               Manager, Technical Publications
sgallagher -at- expersoft -dot- com         Expersoft Corporation, San Diego CA
                                 http://www.expersoft.com

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