Calm Water Business Partner, LLC

It is especially important in a sales role that you show you have the right type of personality and tenacity for a sales position.

When I post a job for any level of sales opportunity, if the resume I receive looks like a possible candidate, I reply to the email with “Please call me to discuss.”

Close to ninety percent of the candidates do not call me.

It makes my job easier.  If the candidate isn’t the type of person to pick up the phone and follow up on the resume and my email, then they are not likely going to be a stellar sales person for my client.

Makes you wonder doesn’t it?  This is just a test…

Today I received an extremely well written cover letter indicating I had found the perfect candidate for one of my job searches.

Among the many qualifications mentioned in the cover letter were dependability, loyalty and dedication.  The candidate went on to explain how her experience was a precise technical fit for my opening as well.

Thinking this resume would definitely be worth reviewing, I quickly clicked the attachment to open the resume.

My definition of dependable, loyal and dedicated must be different.  Attached was a resume listing approximately twenty different jobs with twenty different companies over a span of less than five years.

If you are going to lead with these qualities, at the very least, there should be some explanation as to why you haven’t stayed with any of your former employers for longer than six months.  And it better be good…

Just a reminder that not every company ceases hiring activities around the end of the year. Yes, it’s the holidays and scheduling interviews may slow down for some companies, but resumes are still being reviewed and decisions are still being made. Year-end budgets are being worked out and in some cases offers need to be extended before the New Year starts.

So if you have decided it’s not worth your time to look at job postings this close to the holidays, you may be missing out. I’ve posted several openings over the least two weeks and am receiving resumes from all over the globe.

Local candidates have the best chance of being hired…so don’t stop your search under the mistaken idea that no one is hiring this time of the year.

And…season’s greetings to everyone.

I am often asked if cover letters are really all that important.  My answer is “it depends.”

Some hiring managers read cover letters just as intensely as they do the resume.  Others skip them completely and just focus on the resume.

If the job posting has specifically requested a cover letter, omitting it could get your resume dumped automatically.

Sending a cover letter that you have cut and pasted from a previous application that perhaps has the name of the other company on it, the wrong job title, or a detailed list of your specific skills and how they apply to some other job won’t win you any brownie points either.

Sometimes the request for a cover letter is a test to see how well you follow directions and communicate.  This is especially important for management positions and roles that typically require written correspondence as part of your daily tasks.

Cover letters that are full of spelling mistakes, typos, grammatical errors are, of course, really bad.  Again, if you are a Technical Writer, Marketing candidate or Editor…well, you get my drift.

And before you say that would never happen, I once got a resume from a degreed Technical Writer.  His resume had thirty-two spelling errors in it.  When I pointed that out, his response was, “Well, if the company can’t see beyond that, then I don’t want to work for them.”  I believe the feeling was mutual.