Feedback from an Employer: Things to Consider Before Applying for a Gig
February 22, 2008 by Deb
Filed under Freelance Writing, Writing Tips
Ever wonder what the people who place ads are thinking once the reponses start rolling in? What makes one person reject an application and accept another? James, from the TippyLeaf Tea blog job offered to give some feedback. As you can imagine, I jumped at the chance to let the person who is doing the hiring to offer his thoughts. One thing that stood out for me is where James tells us if you answered five minutes after I posted his job, you probably didn’t take the time to give his website a good look. It’s really important to know your client. They can tell if you haven’t done your research. Thanks James! – Deb
You posted my ad for a tea blogger yesterday. Having enjoyed your blog for a while now, and benefited from advertising a job on there, I wanted to give something back and thought it might be useful to have the comments of an employer on the way that people apply. It might help some applicants. Many of these things are subjective and people may disagree, but I hope this is helpful.
Things that candidates do that I like
1. In general, I am grateful for the effort people make in applying. You are bound to have several writing jobs on the go, perhaps on a range of topics, and you no doubt apply to many jobs, so I appreciate you taking the time to write a personal email, trying to show that you love my subject area, trying to be funny, and so on.
2. Do give me a link to the stuff you already write, or send me an attachment. Perhaps not everyone thinks this is the best option, but for a writing job, ultimately I will want to see your writing, and I don’t want to have to email you asking for it.
3. It does help if you already write a blog or articles. Of the 500 applications I had in the first day, almost all claim they love blogging, so I need to create another filter, and that is bound to be do you actually have a blog or not. True, a great writer may not have a blog already or have written anything online, but I have enough people to choose from and am sufficiently pressed for time that I will take that gamble.
4. Do write in the style I asked for. I said I wanted an informal, personal style. So that is another way to make your email stand out a bit more – even the ones I reject (e.g. informal to the point of spelling mistakes), I appreciate the customisation. Just remember that you will be the voice of brand, so don’t sound too crazy.
5. It may be difficult to do, but the emails that connected to the wider context of my needs have stuck in my mind – for example, people who had connections to cricket, or who have visited northern India, or who punned (supposedly an English thing to do), etc. When I recruit bloggers to write about web 2.0, I will notice people who can do stock analysis, or who can code.
Things that candidates do that I don’t like
1. Do spellcheck. Seriously, it’s a writing job! If you have spelling mistakes, 90% of the time, I will delete your email right there.
2. Whether you replied within 5 minutes or 24 hours is not going to make a world of difference in whether I give you the job. But if you apply within 5 minutes, I will assume you haven’t really looked at the blog, haven’t really decided if you are right to do it, personalised your email, etc. I do understand that you apply for a lot of things, and a 90%-template email is fine, but add a line or something that shows you read my ad.
3. Don’t ask me for more details without even sending me your CV. This may seem harsh, but it has also been problematic in many previous instances where I have recruited full time writers. I realise that the job ad may not answer all your questions, but I get hundreds of applications, I am not going to write new detailed emails to the 50 people who ask. Especially since the information requested is usually not essential. If you send me a two line email asking for a ten line email back, that isn’t going to happen.
4. Don’t tell me that you’d never thought of blogging before, never realised people got paid to blog, etc.
5. Don’t send attachments that I cannot open i.e. not Word or PDF. Yes, I could figure out how to, but I won’t.
6. Don’t tell me that my blog is rubbish, even if I hinted at it in the job ad. Or, don’t just tell me that, if you want to say it is rubbish, tell me what you would do to improve it.
Why I reject the rejections
Remember that I need to choose 1 out of 500, and that at most 200 may be “bad”, and 20 may be equally good for what I need, and rejection is an inexact science. I accept that I may reject the best candidate, but I have to make a tradeoff between thoroughness and time.
1. Spelling mistakes.
2. One-liners asking me for more information.
3. Your attachments are in some format I cannot open.
4. Subject expertise. This is more relevant in another job I have where I recruit technical writers. With tea it is not so important, but I do look for attitudes to the subject that may show a fundamental divergence which will become an issue. In this case, say your favourite tea is mint tea (which is not actually tea) or you drink earl grey with milk (which I know many people do, but…), I will probably reject you, especially if your application did not particularly stand out. This is perhaps very subjective, and can be unfair (because it penalises people who took the risk to tell me what their stance is, rather than those who write more neutral emails), but again given the large number of applications that I have to whittle down, this is as good a criteria as any.
5. Your current style isn’t what I need. Much as your heart may yell that you can adopt a different style, I need to find ways of narrowing down the list, and this is one. If you adapt your style, I will get the style that I defined. If it already is your style, you will be able to take it to the next level.
James
@ James: The least you could do for poor Harry is to hold the nail steady while he wails on it with the hammer, LOL! (Hopefully he has good aim…)
It would be funny if James hired James, you are right there….
Ok. I’ve had time to cool off. I took a few things to heart and as a writer, I should know better.
I emailed Deb and apologized for being a nasty little commenter and I’m going to apologize to the community, too. It’s not normal for me to be so touchy and I’m sorry for putting a thorn into an otherwise enjoyable read.
I’ll behave from now on, I promise. Of course, I don’t promise to agree, just to be polite about it!
Ah, and, if James from Tippy takes a peek, I’m sorry for coming off rude to you, even if I disagree with some of your points. Good luck with your blogger search.
I’m so happy to see you back Julie. Thank you for apologizing, and I regret my (since removed) “mackdown time” remark as well.
Wow. That was really cool and very big of you, Julie. Don’t worry; you didn’t wreck my read.
@ Deb – Don’t regret it. You did what you had to, situation resolved, everyone’s all good and no one blames you.
I find the comments about replies with questions interesting. My last client hired me because I took the time to research him and his company and my first email was mostly questions. In my case the client approached me. I suppose that would greatly change how client and writer would communicate at the initial stages.
If you toss the folks who reply quickly, you could be dumping an application from someone who is already a loyal reader of your blog. If a blog I frequented asked for a writer, it would not take all that long to craft a reply. For all they know, I might have been thinking for weeks or even months how much I could improve the blog if only given the chance.
With the 99% or so of the other quick repliers, your opinion is probably quite justified.
I do find it refreshing that at least one employer does not hold it against an applicant if they didn’t reply within an hour or two. I always take the time to do a little research about a company before I apply/reply. One prospect actually emailed me back and snidely told me that two hours was too long to take to reply and that he had already signed a contract with another writer. (Somehow, I think I dodged a bullet with that one.)
I am surprised that James wants a resume or CV. I have seen many folks with great academic and professional qualifications who simply can not write a decent sentence. Many of the technical writers that I have worked with had great resumes but were more interested in churning out pages than actually producing something useful.
I would think someone hiring a blogger would be much more interested in seeing what the writer has already done elsewhere. And if looking for a blogger, I would certainly expect the writer to have their own or at least one where they contribute regularly.
Great feedback! It is always useful to see how an employer evaluates applicants.
Good points. I have written similar articles myself regarding applicants’ email addresses and voice mail messages.
@ James (from Tippy Leaf) Thank you from me as well for giving this valuable feedback to all of us. It looks like James (the other one
) and myself both appreciate Chai Tea.
But in all seriousness, it isn’t often that clients give feedback on applications and should be done more often to help writers in general.
This has been an interesting read and seeing how we all react in different ways just shows that we are all passionate about what we do.
I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got a lovely cup of tea waiting for me.
Wow. I guess my comment was removed before everyone else had agreed with the exact point I made about 5 minutes. Hmm. The only other thing said was that I did post my blog link, which was something James mentioned that those who replied to the ad didn’t do, and that not all spelling is perfect. I also said that some very good points were made from James. So I wonder, why was my comment removed?
@ Joy – Probably not removed at all and just caught in a spam filter. Unless you swore vehemently, which I doubt.
By the way… when you mention James in this thread, you’ll have to be more specific
Ahh. Thank you for the insight, James. No, no swearing, whatsoever.
You’re right, I should have been more specific. I meant, of course, the editor James, from the tea blog.
Thank you again.
Hey James,
Although I never applied for the gig, I just thought I’d go and take a look at your blog…
yummy, those cakes have sold it to me!
I just want to raid the food cupboard now and, you guessed, I have just finished a nice cup of tea.
Seriously, it looks a very interesting blog and who ever wins this gig, I feel, is going to be a very lucky tea lady or man
@Julie – Ditto what James with pens said about you commenting humbly to the community. It is a great sign of character strength to admit stepping over a line and then make amends.
Not all heated “conversations” here have ended that way. It’s good to see this happen.
Very cool, glad to see you back!
James and Erika- Thanks.
Sometimes my fingers get away from me before I cool off.
Joy- Nope, that was me. I was a nasty little snit for a minute.
Julie – no excuses, you’ll just have to admit you had your fingers in your tea and they got burned… then you decided to cool off by eating a sticking bun from Jame’s blog!
OK, we’ll forgive you… but if we catch ya slurping again there is no going back
For what it’s worth, The Tippyleaf Tea Guy took out ads here, at About Freelance Writing, ProBlogger, Writers Weekly and maybe more. So if you’re wondering why he was flooded with applications it’s because he searched on many different boards.
Because of this, I’d also say his comments shouldn’t only be directed at the people who applied through this blog. They came from all over the Internet.
Perhaps if Mr. Tippyleaf only stuck to this blog for applicants he wouldn’t have been inundated and we wouldn’t be so awed by the amount of responses he received.
Thank you for this interesting post.
Most of what you have posted is common sense; but it’s great to have it out there for all to see.
I dare say that a lot of us are lacking in confidence; when it comes to considering jobs as freelance writer’s/blogger’s, which leads us to dismiss the possibilities available to us.
I truly think that there are a lot of talented writer’s out there, who simply don’t realise that they have what it takes.
So thanks for opening up a few eyes.