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Job Seeking Advice

Are you making the right impression?

6 March 2014

I pinched this off another site, but I have also received these sort of e-mails…

This morning, I received an email with a CV attached. Nothing strange there you might think. I get lots of emails and CVs to review every day. But this one was different. I’m not sure if I was meant to receive it as mine was at the end of a long, long list of company HR managers and recruiters. The sender seemed to be looking for a new job and had emailed his CV to all and sundry.

What was his objective? Well, as there wasn’t a note/covering letter on the email, I can’t be sure, but I guess he wanted the recipients to read his CV and offer an interview.
My question is – why would they?

Do you give the right impression by sending out your CV to a long list of email addresses with no Covering Letter or introduction? I’d say probably not.

There’s nothing wrong with some proactive speculative job-seeking, but to make the right impression:

  1. Send the CV to each person on your list separately – don’t look desperate – or lazy.
  2. Show the recipient you have done your homework and researched their company to find out a little bit about it and why you may like to work there.
  3. Send the CV to a named person rather than [email protected]
  4. In the body of the email, write a brief but compelling cover letter addressed to the recipient and explain why you are writing, why you’d like to work for them in particular (e.g. you’ve read about a new contract they have coming up) and what you can offer them in terms of skills and experience.
  5. Invite them to read your attached CV and to contact you to arrange to discuss further.
  6. Call them in a few days to make sure they’ve received your email and read it. Ask for feedback.
  7. Keep in touch – they may not have an opening now, but in a month or so that could change. Don’t badger them every day, but build good rapport and they’ll be likely to remember you for all the right reasons.

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