Julie Ann
Julie Ann
Aug 28, 2017 · 2 min read

Dear hopeful on-campus student employees,

Some helpful pointers as you fill out your applications:

1 — Don’t include a picture of your cat wearing headphones in your cover letter. He’s cute, but this job does not involve cats.

2 — It’s great that you can speak another language, but this job has nothing to do with any language besides English. Prominently emphasizing your foreign language skills on your resume makes it obvious that you didn’t modify your documents for my posting in particular.

3 — It’s MS “Office”, not “Offices”.

4 — Avoid starting sentences with “Furthermore…” or “Being that…”

5 — If I didn’t request your 300-page MA thesis on statistical analysis, please don’t include it your application package. This job isn’t related to statistical analysis.

6 — Who is telling you to include a “Personal Interests” section on your resume? Don’t. Maybe include a section on volunteer work or organizations to which you belong, but your vague listing of “Yoga, Dogs, Photography” belongs on a dating site, not your resume.

7 — I also don’t need your high school transcript. I know you worked hard, but now you’re in college and it doesn’t matter at all. Don’t send me things I didn’t request.

8 — I’m skeptical of your enthusiasm and passion and overuse of exclamation points. You are not “excited!” about data entry. No one is excited about data entry. Maybe you “take satisfaction in accurately completing a tedious task”, but that’s the most excitement I should see in an application for an obviously really boring job.

9 — When in doubt, I’m “Ms.”, not “Miss” or “Mrs.”. Using “Dr.” is flattering, but it makes it clear that you didn’t look me up on the university’s website to see that I don’t have the appropriate credentials for that title.

10 — If you use the word “leverage” more than once in your application package, I probably won’t hire you, but I WILL win my game of “Student Application Package Bingo”, so it’s appreciated.

Thanks!

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Julie Ann

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Julie Ann

rebellious contentment | poetry and prose and prosetry | writing about toddlers, incarnation, divorce, physicality, love | human of an adorably stupid bulldog