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"It presumes that you, the company, have this great and wonderful thing to offer some lucky individual, the candidate." No it doesn't. We're just asking you t

"It presumes that you, the company, have this great and wonderful thing to offer some lucky individual, the candidate." No it doesn't. We're just asking you to spell or name, our product names, and everything else right. That's not a tall order, it's basic writing etiquette. This is your job application. It's your first impression. Spelling is important. If you can't get that right, or don't notice that it's wrong, then I don't think you are paying attention to the kind of details that we think are important. Spelling, writing, paying attention to spaces, characters, letters -- those things are important to us. It's not pretentious of an employer to expect someone to check their spelling -- especially the spelling of the company name. That's a basic writing skill. If you are applying for a job you better believe it matters to the employer. Ignore that advice at your own risk.

timcederman 18y ago
Then how do you explain your (as in 37signal's) own lapses?
- timcederman 18y ago
  Never mind - I just noticed your reply on 37signals.com to someone else, which I felt was a bit of a cop-out given the emphasis you placed on the company name. If it was that important, I would have thought you would get it right on things like your incorporated company name or public blog. JF 16 Jun 08 Ben, we’re all about making mistakes. We make them all the time. But making a spelling mistake on a job application is the one place you shouldn’t be making a spelling mistake. And I can promise you this opinion isn’t unique to 37signals, we’ve just chosen to talk about it publicly. We will likely be sharing part of the designer hiring process once we’ve successfully hired someone. It wouldn’t make sense to share a resume with someone we’re considering if we haven’t hired them yet. Someone could lose their current job that way. Or we might be setting unfair expectations for someone.
derefr 18y ago
This bothers me simply because there may be layers of indirection between the candidate's hand and your eyes. If, for instance, they dictated that part of the application, the person taking the information down may not have taken the same care the applicant would have. There might have been a "grammar correction" pass in their email client that they had set to automatic instead of interactive. That's just two things, but if there are any there are probably more I'm not thinking of.

timcederman 18y ago

Then how do you explain your (as in 37signal's) own lapses?

timcederman 18y ago
Never mind - I just noticed your reply on 37signals.com to someone else, which I felt was a bit of a cop-out given the emphasis you placed on the company name. If it was that important, I would have thought you would get it right on things like your incorporated company name or public blog. JF 16 Jun 08 Ben, we’re all about making mistakes. We make them all the time. But making a spelling mistake on a job application is the one place you shouldn’t be making a spelling mistake. And I can promise you this opinion isn’t unique to 37signals, we’ve just chosen to talk about it publicly. We will likely be sharing part of the designer hiring process once we’ve successfully hired someone. It wouldn’t make sense to share a resume with someone we’re considering if we haven’t hired them yet. Someone could lose their current job that way. Or we might be setting unfair expectations for someone.

derefr 18y ago

This bothers me simply because there may be layers of indirection between the candidate's hand and your eyes. If, for instance, they dictated that part of the application, the person taking the information down may not have taken the same care the applicant would have. There might have been a "grammar correction" pass in their email client that they had set to automatic instead of interactive. That's just two things, but if there are any there are probably more I'm not thinking of.