your advise on rejection letters please

heretolearn_2

Oh I take a very close look at covering letters and do use them as one of the criteria to shortlist, as all our jobs require communication with clients and official bodies, an understanding that a business email letter isn't the same as a personal one, and an attention to detail. Mess up on the covering letter and you tell me you are no good at business communication. This is not a letter/email to a mate. This should be taken seriously. Also, as mlz says, often a lot of other people have input into a CV. To see someone's true writing abilities you have to look at their covering letter. I've had some cracking CVs with absolutely awful letters; very bad spelling and grammar. There's no way I'm letting that person send out a letter on my firm's behalf.

Sambucus_Nigra

heretolearn wrote: »

Oh I take a very close look at covering letters and do use them as one of the criteria to shortlist, as all our jobs require communication with clients and official bodies, an understanding that a business email letter isn't the same as a personal one, and an attention to detail.

The original question was regarding putting information about notice period and required salary in the covering letter; and the OP doesn't seem to have any idea why that isn't always included and is thereby binning applicants just because they don't include it.

The quality of the sentence asking the company to view the CV is a completely different matter; and the OP has now changed their query to how to respond to a very simplistic request.

I say - if the OP really and truly can't work out that their recruitment practices are flawed, then they will continue to get letters that are not up to scratch. The notice period and salary is a red herring it would seem as the OP doesn't know how to respond to badly written covering letters. So much for their own ability to learn.

bluenoseam

mlz1413 wrote: »

Ok final question - what words would you use to be constructive to the candidate who applied with the below???
Hi
can you please have a look at my Cv for above role

The postion applied for is a managment role.

if that was the entire body of their cover letter I'd be tempted to say

"I'm sorry, but for a management role your cover letter was completely inappropriate, contained THREE basic language errors and ONE basic courtesy error. Perhaps during your next application you may wish to learn from these mistakes as it may improve your chances of atleast getting to the interview stage."

with the errors highlighted "school style" in red biro, it's harsh, but I wouldn't expect to get anywhere if that was the standard of covering letter I was sending. Cripes, I send out better covering letters for sales assistant jobs - first impressions count and if your first impression is that lazy then it's not entirely unreasonable that your CV is promptly binned. Yes it's true that they could be the next business mastermind with a CV that reads like the perfect CV - but ultimately they just turned up to the interview wearing a shellsuit & stinking of stale beer with that covering letter!

mlz1413

SN you need to go back and read my original post.

I explained what I was asking for in a covering letter and then I asked if feedback on poor quality covering letters should be given.

since then I have given more info my personal feelings about why the covering letters are poor.

My final question on how to respond to a p1ss poor application iis because I'm not employed to do HR and so am finding it hard to be constructive - which in my book shows a willingness to listen to other people which means learning too.

mlz1413

bluenoseam wrote: »

if that was the entire body of their cover letter I'd be tempted to say

"I'm sorry, but for a management role your cover letter was completely inappropriate, contained THREE basic language errors and ONE basic courtesy error. Perhaps during your next application you may wish to learn from these mistakes as it may improve your chances of atleast getting to the interview stage."

with the errors highlighted "school style" in red biro, it's harsh, but I wouldn't expect to get anywhere if that was the standard of covering letter I was sending. Cripes, I send out better covering letters for sales assistant jobs - first impressions count and if your first impression is that lazy then it's not entirely unreasonable that your CV is promptly binned. Yes it's true that they could be the next business mastermind with a CV that reads like the perfect CV - but ultimately they just turned up to the interview wearing a shellsuit & stinking of stale beer with that covering letter!

My thoughts entirely - thank you!

And yes that was the entire covering letter with their name at the bottom and that only had a capital letter on the first name!

Miss_Scrooge_2

Can I ask why a cover letter/e-mail can't be addressed with a "hi". Don't you think that is being a little nitpicky??

I address all my e-mails with a "Hi" followed by the person's name. It's polite but not too formal.

kazzah60

Miss_Scrooge wrote: »

Can I ask why a cover letter/e-mail can't be addressed with a "hi". Don't you think that is being a little nitpicky??

I address all my e-mails with a "Hi" followed by the person's name. It's polite but not too formal.

I do believe this could be a generational issue - I am 49 and come from an era where letter writing and CV skills were taught during our O level English language classes ( language and literature were separate subjects in the olden days!)
I would NOT consider
" Hi
can you take a look at my Cv for the position"
as being an appropriate "covering letter" for an applicant.

to me, it smacks of informality which I feel is insulting towards the recipient - but I am sure this is simply due to my age and being taught how to write letters properly.

As an aside - the other thing which drives me mad- is text speak in posts - but I know I am heading towards grumpy old woman status now :rotfl:

Errata

Miss_Scrooge wrote: »

Can I ask why a cover letter/e-mail can't be addressed with a "hi". Don't you think that is being a little nitpicky??

I address all my e-mails with a "Hi" followed by the person's name. It's polite but not too formal.

It's not polite - it's an Americanism and entirely inappropriate for a formal business communication.

Sambucus_Nigra

mlz1413 wrote: »

SN you need to go back and read my original post.

I explained what I was asking for in a covering letter and then I asked if feedback on poor quality covering letters should be given.

since then I have given more info my personal feelings about why the covering letters are poor.

My final question on how to respond to a p1ss poor application iis because I'm not employed to do HR and so am finding it hard to be constructive - which in my book shows a willingness to listen to other people which means learning too.

You said

I wanted to ask for your opinions on rejection letters - this is from the employer to the job seeker.

I work for a small company and when we advertise a job we ask for a CV with covering letter containing notice period and required salary, but so many replies do not contain that information or anything covering the request.

I always want to say to job seekers your CV didn't get through because your covering letter didn't contain the information specifically requested. But is this something that just shouldn't be said? Are standard no letters better?

Any views would be appreciated!

Miss_Scrooge_2

kazzah60 wrote: »

I do believe this could be a generational issue - I am 49 and come from an era where letter writing and CV skills were taught during our O level English language classes ( language and literature were separate subjects in the olden days!)
I would NOT consider
" Hi
can you take a look at my Cv for the position"
as being an appropriate "covering letter" for an applicant.

to me, it smacks of informality which I feel is insulting towards the recipient - but I am sure this is simply due to my age and being taught how to write letters properly.

As an aside - the other thing which drives me mad- is text speak in posts - but I know I am heading towards grumpy old woman status now :rotfl:

I wouldn't have considered that e-mail either. It lacks any effort whatsoever. But the OP listed the "hi" as an issue, which I think is a little petty. Maybe I'm just more for the friendly, casual approach, while still remaining professional, of course. I'm in profession where personality and passion shines through more than anything else.