There’s simply no science that a career and job search expert can refer to that can be used to guarantee that a recruiter will call you once your cover letter (if you’ve actually sent one) and résumé hits their Inbox. Even a spot-on performance match can’t get past the dumbass biases – or just plain dumbassability – that many recruiters and hiring managers carry with them to the office each day.
Where do people get their job search advice from? Do they even ask these experts if they actually know any recruiters? Or do they confuse “marketing gurus” with “talent scouts”? (Another reason for recruiting to never report to marketing)
Seriously:
To Whom It May Concern? Nothing says “lazy jobseeker” more than this salutation. Yeah, yeah, I know you’re going to ask me how does one identify the recruiter or hiring manager – and I’ll show you how freakin’ easy it is.
Dear Sir or Madame? Oh, this one is so much better – if you’re applying for a job at the Alien Area 51 Cathouse in Nevada (cut out the comments – I Googled “legal brothels in nevada”).
Dear Recruiting Professional? This one always makes be cringe. My – that last word is an awfully big assumption; might as well just use Dear Recruiting Rockstar.
Hi,? I seem to get this one quite a bit from overseas jobseekers. Makes me check to see if they have a first name. Yep – every time.
Dear Bob? My name is Steve. Douchebag.
What does get me to reply?
I know I’m different but as much as the five examples might turn many off and cause these turned off recruiting professionals to pass on a candidate, a very wise mentor long ago informed me of Weinberg’s Second Law of Computing and how it related to recruiting:
If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. ~Gerald M. Weinberg
As it applies to recruiting, companies who “assess to exclude” rather than assess to include do more harm to their short and longer-term bottom line than any lying-on-their-résumé-weasel CEO could ever do. The only thing I can say for certain about any jobseeker with a perfect cover letter and résumé is that they have a perfect cover letter and résumé. I can’t determine their expertise or performance-ability from reading their collateral – only speaking with them can get me to this end.
Some of the best performers I know have résumés so bad that even career services consultants would puke a bit in their mouths ;).
This is why I don’t read the cover letters first: The battle against cover letter stupidity is still tough to overcome, even for this recruiting graybeard. So I wait. I’ll read the résume´; if this is promising, it’s off to the LinkedIn profile or some other secondary source. I’m looking for signs of gold rather than the presence of coal. In other words, I’m looking for performance, not just the presence of accomplishing tasks. Stuff that makes me think, “Dang, this person is special.” Tell me – what’s your special?
Finally, the cover letter.
And if it’s really, really bad, I’ll call. I just have to find out what compelled someone to write such a horrible job search tome (on a more philanthropic note, those who know me, know I make these calls to help jobseekers out).
Even if my name isn’t Bob…
On Monday, 10/27 at 10AM PT (1PM ET), I’ll be joining my friend Dawn Rasmussen on her Google+ Hangout, “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know From Recruiters… And Were Afraid to Ask.” No holds barred, no fluff. Just stuff you should be able to use to convince that recruiter or hiring manager to call you back. Here’s the link to the event.
The Recruiting Inferno 
A similar view from the other side of the table, that I wrote almost three years ago: http://www.recruitingrants.com/2011_12_01_archive.html
Long story short:
“Dear Mr. Shmoe”, ok. “Hi Joe”, ok. “Dear Candidate”, sounds a bit lazy, but ok, it’s probably a mass email anyway. (Don’t get me started on spammy recruiters, but IMHO it’s OK to send a mass email about it *if* the job is appropriate for *every* recipient.)
But… “Hello Actively”, “Dear Casually”, “Hi Confidential”, or “Greetings and Felicitations, O Exalted Exploring Options”? Uh, no. That means that whatever they’re using doesn’t even work right, AND they haven’t bothered to check. More than likely, they also haven’t bothered to check whether the job is a good fit for me either.
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Spot on Dave. Recruiters and hiring managers do more to ruin an employment brand that they could ever imagine…
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Agreed on all this with one caveat. I will often call candidates, too, if something seems off, but it’s also contextual to the search. My primary client base- educators- is high volume. Sometimes I only call after I’ve scheduled all the high potential candidates that are not questionable at all. Sometimes someone gets missed who is probably a great fit but phoned in their materials. I think as much as you focus on impressing a recruiter, and not making dumb mistakes, you have to think about the competition.
In my resume book, I talk about this a lot- the specificity test. After you’ve written your quantified-accomplishment resume, how specific is the content compared to someone else at a similar experience level? How do you portray yourself as a unique candidate?
Specificity often gets you the job.
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T, what was the link to your book???
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