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That sounds great. However, after helping my girlfriend to send hundreds of cover letters and resumes crafted for each and every position and all you get back i

That sounds great. However, after helping my girlfriend to send hundreds of cover letters and resumes crafted for each and every position and all you get back is generic reply, e.g. "Dear applicant, we are receiving a large amount of application. If we decide to invite you for an interview, you will hear back from us within 8 weeks." and that's it, I'm really questioning this strategy. It is so time consuming that it effectively reduces your chances just by sending low quantity of applications. I think you can't send more than 6-8 of those per day if you work on this full time and it gets quite depressing after a couple of months.

benji-york 9y ago
When intently looking for a job, I segment leads into three groups depending on how much I think I would enjoy the job. The first gets a generic cover letter and generic resume. The second gets a custom cover letter and generic resume. The third gets a custom cover letter and custom resume. Perhaps an approach like that would give the best of both approaches.
- gingerlime 9y ago
  Yes, I totally agree this makes the most sense. I think that even one quick sentence or a few tweaks to make the application look more personalized, can go a long way to getting on top of the list though. e.g. something as simple as "I love what you guys are doing at <company name>" / "It seems like a great place to work with like-minded people at <company name> on <project name mentioned on the job ad>"... not to mention simple formatting, avoiding typos and spelling errors etc :) And of course, even if you write the best resume or cover letter, there are others who would do the same, and perhaps are better qualified. Or did an even better job at it... Sadly, we also had to reject candidates who spent time writing good cover letters and had good resumes. You can only shortlist as many people, and some are bound to get rejected however great they may be.

benji-york 9y ago

When intently looking for a job, I segment leads into three groups depending on how much I think I would enjoy the job. The first gets a generic cover letter and generic resume. The second gets a custom cover letter and generic resume. The third gets a custom cover letter and custom resume. Perhaps an approach like that would give the best of both approaches.

gingerlime 9y ago
Yes, I totally agree this makes the most sense. I think that even one quick sentence or a few tweaks to make the application look more personalized, can go a long way to getting on top of the list though. e.g. something as simple as "I love what you guys are doing at <company name>" / "It seems like a great place to work with like-minded people at <company name> on <project name mentioned on the job ad>"... not to mention simple formatting, avoiding typos and spelling errors etc :) And of course, even if you write the best resume or cover letter, there are others who would do the same, and perhaps are better qualified. Or did an even better job at it... Sadly, we also had to reject candidates who spent time writing good cover letters and had good resumes. You can only shortlist as many people, and some are bound to get rejected however great they may be.