4 ms·
Nobody will read transcripts. Few hiring officers read resumes. This issue is vastly, vastly, vastly less importance to your success with your job search than
by patio11 13y ago
Nobody will read transcripts. Few hiring officers read resumes.
This issue is vastly, vastly, vastly less importance to your success with your job search than meeting and making an impression on people with hiring authority is. The default response to an unsolicited resume is for it to be silently discarded. Rather than making that the focus of your efforts, start identifying people you'd like to work for (or companies and, by extension, the people within them with hiring authority) and pitching them directly. Your conversations will be much, much more interesting than anything on your resume or any response to it.
- wglb 13y agoFew hiring officers read resumes. What is your opinion about cover letters?
- tptacek 13y agoWrite cover letters. I almost never read resumes. I read every cover letter. Any hiring manager that says you shouldn't write cover letters is someone you should be suspicious of working for.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rdouble 13y agoAs an alternative data point to some of the answers, everywhere I've worked looked at resumes and did not really consider cover letters. I believe this is also the case at Google and most Wall Street tech jobs.
- caw 13y agoCould you extrapolate this statement (Google and Wall Street) to giant companies with an online HR application process? Cover letters make sense when you're sending it to a person, or at least an email address. What happens when you put your resume into Taleo or one of those other online application systems? You could be applying to several positions with the same cover letter and resume in that case. I wonder how many people actually read them.
- rdouble 13y agoYou could do that, but I wasn't specifically talking about Taleo or similar systems. When I was on the hiring end, we just got resumes via email and didn't read the cover letter.
- dylangs1030 13y agoCover letters are the most important part of getting an interview. If you can find the right balance of assertive, interesting and enthusiastic, you're almost guaranteed a response at the minimum. By contrast, resumes are spam. I've gone through most hiring processes on my cover letter (and tech interview of course) alone, without ever being asked for a resume.
- lawnchair_larry 13y agoEven fewer read cover letters. Most people hiring in tech do the following: 1) Ignore cover letter 2) Scan resume for signs that employee may be at all relevant 3) Contact for phone screen Anyone who requires a cover letter is not someone you want to work for. It's simply disrespectful and burdensome for a prospective employee who will often be ignored. No transcripts, no GPA.
- wglb 13y agoInteresting. My biggest successes in getting hired have been when I spent time on a cover letter. Conversely, when I am pulled into hiring decisions, I first look for a cover letter, and i generally get more out of that than resumes. Resumes seem to be near spam, or written by the Markov Resume Writing Service.