Keep a Cool Attitude When Applying for Jobs
Or, how to stay sane looking for jobs when you never hear back ever ever ever.
1. Get paid to apply
When possible, apply for jobs while you are technically “on the clock.” Getting paid to apply to jobs feels great, and if you don’t hear back, it doesn’t feel like wasted time. Bonus: This lets you prove that you are ‘great at multitasking,’ as you wrote in your cover letter. (This tip works best if no one can see your computer screen, and if you already have a job.)
2. Never talk about it
Don’t ever tell anyone ever that you applied for anything. Unless they have connections. The worst part about the job search is having people say, “Have you heard back from that job you were so excited about????” NO I HAVE NOT AND I WILL TELL YOU IF I GET A NEW JOB.
3. Don’t try too hard
If you try super hard with your application and get rejected or never hear back, it will hurt a lot. It means that the company is rejecting your best work! Tragic! This is why you must not torture yourself over cover letters or CVs. That way, when they reject you, you might even agree with their decision a little bit. Also, clearly your shining personality will be apparent with just a glance at your cover letter, so why spend too much time?
4. Try not to care
Sometimes, applying for a new job feels like asking someone out on a date. But it’s so much easier! Usually they don’t even bother to reject you!
Tip five is don’t take any chances publishing cheeky lists about applying for jobs while you’re applying for jobs. (Sofia Smith is pen name.)
This is a great reminder to me not to be that person who asks “have you heard back from that job you were so excited about???” :\
@redheaded&crazy I appreciate that my friends & family don’t ask me this, but it makes me want to tell someone (I haven’t yet) that I didn’t get that job I was so excited about and had inside connections for. The promised phone call to discuss the job (due to my connection) didn’t even come. So, internet, I’m telling you because typing it out makes it more real when I’ve been sitting on that knowledge for a couple of weeks.
Re: #4: it’s cute that you think people still reject others for dates either!
actually, do not EVER do #1. that is possibly the worst advice i have ever seen on this site. first off, if you get caught applying for other jobs while AT YOUR JOB, you are likely to get fired on the spot. I’ve seen people be escorted out of the building for this (and it’s easy to get caught through internet traffic monitoring by IT- no one has to see your screen). Second, even if you don’t get caught it makes you a big jerk. It’s one thing to use your company’s resources for fun and blog reading – maybe not allowed, but not really hurting your company. it’s another to use your company’s resources – computer, internet and the time they are paying you to do work – to find another job.
@guenna77: YES! Exactly!
@guenna77 seriously people if you can’t bother to read your company’s computer policy just assume every keystroke is being recorded/every site you see is seen by others.
That being said, I surfed for jobs on my cellphone via my cellphone providers network (ignore company wifi, too, people)…not all corporations resources are worthy of the aforementioned respect
@guenna77 I don’t think that normal recreational internet is morally any better–either way you’re getting paid to work and not working.
I do all of these except the first one (cuz I ain’t got no job) and still ain’t got no interviews.
I dunno about #2. The last three jobs I’ve gotten were because friends knew I was looking and passed job announcements to me. I talked about my applications and my job search all. the. time. So much that everyone knew that DJ POMEGRANATE NEEDS A JOB PLEASE FORWARD HER JOBS. Worked for me!
@dj pomegranate I think there’s a difference between “hey, just so everyone knows, I need a job” and “I applied for X position at Y company today and I expect to hear back by Z.” I try not to do much of the latter for the reasons above, but have also had good success broadcasting my general plans to certain contacts.
Tip #3 is the hardest for me, because somehow I always end up approaching every new cover letter (I tailor them to every single application I send out) as my Magnum Opus, spending way too much time and effort on every single one. And it is indeed all the more crushing and demotivating when one gets rejected, because of all the unnecessarily wasted time and work.
What’s worse, in the time I spend on perfecting one and way overdoing it, I could easily have sent out three or four less perfect but still just as good ones and increased my chances of getting an interview or callback proportionally. I really need to learn to stop at “good enough” instead of absolutely perfect.
@Nick The impression I get is that nobody reads your cover letter unless they’ve already decided they’re going to interview you based on your resume. String together a few coherent sentences and get the name of the organization right. It’s a low bar.
@MuffyStJohn Really!? WTF HAVE I BEEN DOING!?
@MuffyStJohn I don’t know if that is true though! The guy who hired me for my first lawyer job commented about how impressed he was by my cover letter! He was a little weird though, so…
@WaityKatie I had a job interview last week and we spent only about ten minutes on my resume and the rest of the hour on (topics from) my cover letter… Maybe I should find some way of conveying that information in my resume instead, but it is already quite overstuffed so there’s a bit of a dilemma on what to cut and what to keep. (The interview went well, I’m not desperately looking for a new job because my current one is perfectly fine and I still enjoy it, but the one I interviewed for is especially cool, so… fingers crossed.)
@MuffyStJohn It really really depends on the job. It will be very different if it’s a job about writing vs. a job about coding, you know>
That said, I do fine with half-assed cover letters (although I’m a good writer, and my standard/basic letter is good). Just really make sure there are no glaring errors.
It could be an industry or experience level thing, but I’ve consistently been told by hiring managers that the cover letter is essentially an afterthought. If it’s a writing-intensive job, they’ll ask you to attach a writing sample or have you do some kind of tailored writing exercise as part of the interview process. And again, that’s why you should make sure your cover letter is coherent.
Also, if you’re spending most of your interview time talking about your cover letter, then some stuff needs to be moved to your resume.
@MuffyStJohn What industry are you in? This is something I’ve never heard before!! (But would have saved me SO MUCH TIME OH MY GOD my school’s entire career center has been approximately 100 times less useful than your two comments right here.)
@Jay Green I’m a lobbyist for a nonprofit. My job is very writing intensive. They had me do an on-site writing assignment (my cover letter was OK, but not the most amazing thing in the world). I had similar experiences when I was an admin. If people want to make sure you can write, they want to know you can write something other than a damned cover letter, and they’ll find a more effective way to test that.
@MuffyStJohn On the flip side, when I was hiring an entry-level person for the development office of a nonprofit, I just used the cover letter as my writing sample, because first I needed to make sure the person could write things that were fairly formulaic and basic, but in a well-done way.
It depends!
But yeah, my cover letter doesn’t say anything that’s not in my resume aside from how much passion and personal connection I have to the specific job….
@Lily Rowan Also, I guess it depends on how big the place is — at my current job, I have seen people brought in to interview by HR that I would have tossed, based on their cover letters!
@Lily Rowan Of course! But even if you use the cover letter as a larger part of the selection process (or as the writing sample sample), also it doesn’t have to be some great magnum opus. It just needs to be clearly written with minimal mistakes.
My point is basically that people waaaay overinflate their importance in the hiring process. I know people who will sit and fret about their cover letters so long the job is no longer posted by the time everything is just perfect. Write something decent and get it out of the way, and focus more attention on tailoring your resume (which people look at first).
@MuffyStJohn Totally. I think we’re saying the same thing, just with different emphases.
@Nick Chiming in late…I work in documentary film. I always always always read the cover letter first and then, if that passes, read the resume. But it really depends on the industry, the company, and what position you’re applying for.
My reasoning is that a personality match is usually really important to me and, being in film, 99% of people have such bullshit resumes anyway that I don’t really learn very much from most of them.
That said…don’t overthink this. It’s generally okay if 1 or 2 out of 3 paragraphs seems copy-pasted as long as you bothered to write a tailored intro and to reference the key points of my ad. More than 3 typos and you’re out.
Oh lordy, I wish I had had some detachment about my epic application to Whole Foods (complete with inside connection). I didn’t get the job and took the rejection so very personally, but still shop there, making me feel like I’m clinging to a dysfunctional relationship. I try to remember this: you know who else didn’t get that job? EVERYONE ELSE WHO APPLIED (except for one lucky bastard). Perspective, come to me now.
yeah, i have a great situation where I CAN do number 1: i have a receptionist job on Sundays where my boss told me all I have to do is man the phones (which ring about once every 3 hours) and feel free to work on job apps. of course, more often than not i spend my six hour shift catching up on new episodes of Louie and reading every.article. on the billfold instead of writing 2-3 unique sentences to add to a pretty standard cover letter.
Sofia Smith! This is my life. Thanks for being my compatriot.
I got through two rounds of interviews at Twitter, and I’ve always been convinced it was my funny and individualistic cover letter (which I actually spent less time on than my boring cover letters, since I feel like I understand modern internet culture a hell of a lot better than corporations and nonprofits) that got me noticed — my qualifications were nothing special. Then again, they didn’t hire me in the end, and here I am commenting through their service anyway, so I guess in the end the sucker is me. But maybe the lesson is write the letter you want to write? Especially if it doesn’t matter anyway?