Right Now, I’m Sifting Through 50+ Applications For A New Entry-level Position. Here’s Some Advice

Right now, I’m sifting through 50+ applications for a new entry-level position. Here’s some advice from the person who will actually be looking at your CV/resume and cover letter:

‘You must include a cover letter’ does not mean ‘write a single line about why you want this position’. If you can’t be bothered to write at least one actual paragraphs about why you want this job, I can’t be bothered to read your CV.

Don’t bother including a list of your interests if all you can think of is ‘socialising with friends’ and ‘listening to music’. Everyone likes those things. Unless you can explain why the stuff you do enriches you as a person and a candidate (e.g. playing an instrument or a sport shows dedication and discipline) then I honestly don’t care how you spend your time. I won’t be looking at your CV thinking ‘huh, they haven’t included their interests, they must have none’, I’m just looking for what you have included.

Even if you apply online, I can see the filename you used for your CV. Filenames that don’t include YOUR name are annoying. Filenames like ‘CV - media’ tell me that you’ve got several CVs you send off depending on the kind of job advertised and that you probably didn’t tailor it for this position. ‘[Full name] CV’ is best.

USE. A. PDF. All the meta information, including how long you worked on it, when you created it, times, etc, is right there in a Word doc. PDFs are far more professional looking and clean and mean that I can’t make any (unconscious or not) decisions about you based on information about the file.

I don’t care what the duties in your previous unrelated jobs were unless you can tell me why they’re useful to this job. If you worked in a shop, and you’re applying for an office job which involves talking to lots of people, don’t give me a list of stuff you did, write a sentence about how much you enjoyed working in a team to help everyone you interacted with and did your best to make them leave the shop with a smile. I want to know what makes you happy in a job, because I want you to be happy within the job I’m advertising.

Does the application pack say who you’ll be reporting to? Can you find their name on the company website? Address your application to them. It’s super easy and shows that you give enough of a shit to google something. 95% of people don’t do this.

Tell me who you are. Tell me what makes you want to get up in the morning and go to work and feel fulfilled. Tell me what you’re looking for, not just what you think I’m looking for.

I will skim your CV. If you have a bunch of bullet points, make every one of them count. Make the first one the best one. If it’s not interesting to you, it’s probably not interesting to me. I’m overworked and tired. Make my job easy.

“I work well in a team or individually” okay cool, you and everyone else. If the job means you’ll be part of a big team, talk about how much you love teamwork and how collaborating with people is the best way to solve problems. If the job requires lots of independence, talk about how you are great at taking direction and running with it, and how you have the confidence to follow your own ideas and seek out the insight of others when necessary. I am profoundly uninterested in cookie-cutter statements. I want to know how you actually work, not how a teacher once told you you should work.

For an entry-level role, tell me how you’re looking forward to growing and developing and learning as much as you can. I will hire genuine enthusiasm and drive over cherry-picked skills any day. You can teach someone to use Excel, but you can’t teach someone to give a shit. It makes a real difference.

This is my advice for small, independent orgs like charities, etc. We usually don’t go through agencies, and the person reading through the applications is usually the person who will manage you, so it helps if you can give them a real sense of who you are and how you’ll grab hold of that entry level position and give it all you’ve got. This stuff might not apply to big companies with actual HR departments - it’s up to you to figure out the culture and what they’re looking for and mirror it. Do they use buzzwords? Use the same buzzwords! Do they write in a friendly, informal way? Do the same! And remember, 95% of job hunting (beyond who you know and flat-out nepotism, ugh) is luck. If you keep getting rejected, it’s not because you suck. You might just need a different approach, or it might just take the right pair of eyes landing on your CV.

And if you get rejected, it’s worthwhile asking why. You’ve already been rejected, the worst has already happened, there’s really nothing bad that can come out of you asking them for some constructive feedback (politely, informally, “if it isn’t too much trouble”). Pretty much all of us have been hopeless jobseekers at one point or another. We know it’s shitty and hard and soul-crushing. Friendliness goes a long way. Even if it’s just one line like “your cover letter wasn’t inspiring" at least you know where to start.

And seriously, if you have any friends that do any kind of hiring or have any involvement with that side of things, ask them to look at your CV with a big red pen and brutal honesty. I do this all the time, and the most important thing I do is making it so their CV doesn’t read exactly like that of every other person who took the same ‘how-to-get-a-job’ class in school. If your CV has a paragraph that starts with something like ‘I am a highly motivated and punctual individual who–’ then oh my god I AM ALREADY ASLEEP.

More Posts from Njkhis and Others

njkhis

3 months ago

i cannot emphasize this enough but you really need to kill the cop in your brain for a variety of reasons but especially in regards to the way that you view unhoused people. the EXTREME vast majority of the people that you see on the street are not going to cause you any harm and you need to start viewing them as human beings. i already know there are people who are going to come at me in the notes about protecting yourself in the streets and like sure being vigilant irt being aware of your surroundings is like. common sense. but the average unhoused person is not going to cause you any real harm and the fact that you view people on the street as imminent threats before recognizing their humanity and the ways in which the system has failed many people out there says a lot about the way you think about class and politics

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njkhis

2 years ago

Look, this is probably going to end up as an unpopular post, because God knows the level of brainrot capitalism and fast consumption caused in people's brains, but I'd rather not get TV shows for a while if it means writers get their rights defended and recognized.

Entertainment can't come at the cost of fair pay, healthy work environment and ethical practices.

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njkhis

5 years ago

the Guardian

WWII: eighty years on, the world is still haunted by a catastrophe foretold | Peter Beaumont

Shock greeted the news that German tanks had rolled into Poland on September 1, 1939. But the slaughter of the continent’s Jews that was to

Also See: From A 1937 Documentation Of Gassing/torture Methods Of The Dacchan Concentration Camp In Nazi

also see: from a 1937 documentation of gassing/torture methods of the Dacchan concentration camp in Nazi Germany reported emulations of America's "jail holocaust". this was flagellated onto El Paso immigrants who were bathed with kerosene and sprayed with vinegar due to their "racial impurity" much to the rise of eugenicism in the US, parallelistic to of how one of the key annihilators of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany was this chemical.

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njkhis

5 years ago

If ya have any percabeth fics i would love to read em been lookin for some good Percy jackson fics

here’s an (incomplete) list of my percabeth (and other pjo) fic:

fake dating au

percabeth planning their wedding

More Than Friends (mortal meets)

patching up a wound

shut doors (sick!annabeth)

shut doors part 2

post-tlo; one falls asleep with the other’s head in their lap

slow dancing

taking a bath together

High Tide (percy goes home)

Baby Steps (sally takes care of her son)

happy (sally & percy celebrate his birthday)

“we’re going to the ball.” (percabeth…. goes to a ball.)

percabeth adopts a puppy

kim possible au

You can also read a selection of Percabeth fic on my ffnet. most of the ones on ffnet are kind of old, though, so quality is not guaranteed. there’s probably a couple more on tumblr i haven’t linked (my blog is old and my tagging system changed)

if you also want i do have percabeth fic ideas that i kinda chip away at every now and then that i’d be more than happy to talk about! there’s also a pjo zine piece that i might be posting soon as well, and i’m working on an old singer!percy/percabeth au.

couple other writers you might want to check out: @percyyoulittleshit & @bananannabeth are a great place to start lookin, both their own writing as well as reblogs. also try the percabeth tag and pjo fanfic tag if you’re looking for more - i always try to keep my blog organized haha.

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njkhis

5 years ago

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njkhis

4 years ago

I’m Going To Reblog Burdge

Tags

oh boy time to feel things again

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njkhis

4 years ago

Please reblog, this is so important.

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njkhis

4 years ago

16. “Do you think the moon is jealous of how pretty you are?” love you and your writing!! ♡♡

[ichor group au]

“Do you think the moon is jealous of how pretty you are?” Percy whispers sweetly as he slips his arms around Annabeth’s waist, placing a kiss to her cheek.

Annabeth slides her hands on top of Percy’s, amazed at how warmth always seems to radiate off of him, and leans back into his arms. Gently, she leans her head into his and smiles as she notes how the light of the moon makes her engagement ring gleam.

“Why are you so good to me?” she asks, her voice quiet.

She feels him shrug before he answers. “How else do you treat the love of your life?”

Annabeth pulls Percy’s arms tighter around her middle, finding comfort in the steadiness of his touch. “I never thought I’d have this.”

“Well you do,” Percy says with confidence. “For always.”

Annabeth laughs as she turns around to face Percy, linking her hands around his neck as he links his at the small of her back.

“For always, huh?”

He nods, a childlike grin lighting up his face. “Yup. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Now answer the question.”

“What question?” she asks, playing dumb.

Percy doesn't waver. “Do you think the moon is jealous of how pretty you are?”

She looks at him, from the deep green of his eyes to the solid lines of his jaw and the perfect curve of his smile until she can’t help but kiss him on his perfectly soft lips. Pulling away, she feels her heart skip a beat at the way Percy’s long eyelashes flutter as he opens his eyes.

“Hmm,” she says pensively. “I guess to answer that I have to ask you a question of my own.”

“What’s that?” he says with a curious squint.

“Do you think the sun is jealous of how my world completely revolves around you?”

She can practically hear the air leave Percy’s lungs as he watches her with awe and reverence. Her gravitational force soon proves to be too strong, and there under the light of the full moon they transform into the sea and shore, crashing into each other with abandon.

Tags

the imagery. my god

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njkhis

4 years ago

angst, 11, “why are you still fighting?” 😢

[canon adjacent I guess, I don’t really know]

The enemy encircles Percy, who is on his knees, bloody and beaten. Demigods and monsters alike sneer and spit at him, calling him every awful thing they can think of. The son of Poseidon doesn’t move. He keeps his chin held high and looks forward, still gripping his sword in his hand, as if waiting for one last battle to begin.

Before him, the crowd begins to part, and soon the prodigal son of Hermes appears in front of him. Luke’s stride is slow and confident, with his sword sheathed at his hip. He looks down his nose at Percy, an evil smirk pinning the corner of his mouth to his cheek.

“Well, Percy, I tried to warn you that it would come to this,” Luke says as he stands over Percy.

Percy takes a shaky breath, his grip on Riptide tightening. “I’ve never been great at listening.”

“How many of your friends have you watched die?” Luke asks, pity in his voice.

“Too many,” Percy answers, his voice hoarse.

“And how many more would you watch die before you just surrender?”

Percy’s jaw tightens and he swallows hard, his green eyes losing focus.

Luke surges forward to bend down and grab fistfuls of Percy’s shirt. “Why are you still fighting?” Luke shouts in his face.

Percy lets out a small laugh, but a tear runs down his cheek. “Because being angry isn’t enough for me,” he answers.

Luke pushes Percy away with a frustrated grunt, his face contorting in disgust. “You think I wanted any of this?”

“I think you want all of it,” Percy replies. “You want to see everything burn because you’ve convinced yourself that once it does, you’ll finally feel peace. But the thing about fire, Luke, is that it’s never satisfied.”

Luke scoffs. “Don’t tell me, son of Poseidon, that you’re using that corny metaphor to tell me you’re here to put the fire out.”

Percy smiles, and his green eyes shine in the light of the torches his enemies bare all around him. “That’s a little corny, even for me,” he admits. “No, I’m… I’m here to make things right, finally.”

“And how are you gonna do that?”

Percy looks down at his sword, tilting his head curiously. “We started this together. It only seems right we end it together.”

The crowd around them becomes quiet and tense, as nervous murmurs begin to replace overconfident cheers.

Luke draws his sword and twirls it in his hand. “You never could beat me in a sword fight.”

Percy smiles again, and, still kneeling, places Riptide’s point on the ground in front of him. “I came close a few times, though, didn’t I?”

“There’s no ocean for miles, Percy,” Luke taunts. “There’s no way for you to heal. I’m afraid close to beating me is all you’ll ever get.”

“Pop quiz, Luke.” Percy says, raising Riptide just above his head. “When my dad’s obnoxious titles get rattled off, what’s the first one people say?”

Luke only has a minute to register the question, answering under his breath. “Earthshaker.”

Percy drives his sword’s tip into the earth,

and the ground

around them

c r u m b l e s.