I don’t mean to blame you, I don’t mean to humiliate you or even laugh at you. You are here because I was not sensitive to your recruitment approach and that I believe you can get better. If you agree with that, let’s have a look at some common mistakes.
Common mistakes
You sent me a non-personalized message
Hi!
Would you be interested in a new job opportunity? If so, please send me a resume!
Is this type of message familiar to you? If that’s what you used to contact me, it is sadly generic:
- it says nothing about the company you are recruiting for;
- it says nothing about the reason you would recruit me (why me?).
If your message starts by
Hello ${FIRSTNAME}
you can easily guess that it is not a good start, the same as when you don’t use my firstname but someone else’s one.
I am not the person you are looking for
Did you check my current position?
If you are offering a job that has no relation with what I currently do or what I am looking for, there are very few chances I could be interested in it.
I am not the person you are writing to
What makes you message specific to me and not to somebody else?
If you cannot answer that question, what could make me feel concerned about it?
I don’t swap
Did you ask me to forward your offer to my network or to refer you people from my network?
If you did, maybe I am not so unique as you wrote a few lines above. Or maybe you don’t really want to hire me, you just want to hire whoever it is.
It is the third time you send me the exact same message
Unlike me, LinkedIn and my mailbox have a very good memory. When you write me a message, I can see the same, the exact same message that you wrote a few weeks ago. What makes you think I would answer you this time?
Oh, one more thing
Word-format resume
When you contact me on LinkedIn, why would you ask me for a resume? What additional information do you expect to find? If something is missing, why not asking me directly?
More specifically, why would you ask me for a Word resume? This format has the unpleasant particularity to me editable. Why, oh why would you make changes to my resume?
That nice Sunday night e-mail
You’re right: I might be more receptive to your e-mail, comfortably chilling on my sofa, on a Sunday night. At least, you can expect me to be less sollicited and more available. And I may even read it! But what is the Dark Side of this e-mail?
This e-mail (even if automatically sent) suggests that you are working on a Sunday night. I may interpret easily that is a common practice in this comopany.
I hope that you don’t advertize a great work/life balance in it!
Useful links
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