Sending out 'speculative' letters to employers

do both if you have typed it to print then emailing is easy enough
also it may go to someone different increasing chances an shows you will work hard to get the job! if it is seen by the same person it may make you stick out

geek84 wrote: »

Hi Folks

Many thanks again for your replies.

The only problem I can see in emailing my CV to employers, is that there will not have a signature at the bottom of my covering letter.

Also, don't you think it is easier for the employer to delete the email (if they want), than throwing a hardcopy of the CV in the bin, which they would receive through the post?

Finally, I have another question for you kind folks out there -

Apart from looking in yellow pages, where else can I get a list of names & addresses for local businesses/employers?

Thanks in advance

Blitz01 wrote: »

Im sorry but speculative letters, are, on the whole, a bad idea.
We have a local 'social evening' once a fortnight where most of the local employers are attendees, and we were discussing this very issue last week.

We all fully realise and sympathise with the lack of work out there at the moment, but mail bombing local employers is very irritating.
I, as an employer, do not want to spend a morning sifting through letters/CV's from people that randomly get our details. Most of them, if they couldve been bothered to investigate further, would normally see there would be no such position for them anyway.

Cruel as it may sound, all speculative letters now get filed under 'Bin', as i really do not have the time to read them all.

Don't agree with this to be honest. I think the fact some people on the thread have had success through this idea bears testament to the fact it can be worthwhile.

I appreciate if they investigate it may appear there are no jobs but often the employer themselves doesn't know when a job will arrive -someone unexpectedly handing in notice, someone having to go on long term sick, someone needing maternity leave etc always create openings. If someone has send in a CV shortly before any of these happenings then even if there isn't a job there and then it may well be revisted - this is what happened for me in the case of someone going off on maternity as i was offered a role some months down the line.

Some companies won't like it, especially small companies i would imagine. But if you send out a large volume of well written and tailored e-mails then i see no harm it can do, with the chance it generates interest. I appreciate your point but also on the counter i had a couple e-mails praising a proactive attitude when i did this myself, and as someone who works in recruitment i always admire people who take this step also.

Blitz01 wrote: »

That's fine to disagree, but please remember, i am one of the ones these specualtive CV's arrrives to, and I am letting you know from experience.

Also, i do not run a small company, i run 3 sites globally that are part of a huge multi-national corporation, and this is where your argument fails.
I do not want to go through loads of CV's, this is why they end up in the bin. People do their homework to decide who to send them to, and think the boss is the right person.
Wrong!
Send them to the HR department and they can vet them. It's what they are for.

What people job hunting should do is this:
Don't send CV's......it's no better than junk mail and gets filed accordingly. It also seems to be the 'easy answer' to job hunting.
If you REALLY want a job, get your best clothes out, and come and knock on the door of people you wish to work for.
I would have the utmost respect for someone that pro-active, and if anything was available, i would give them serious consideration.

The argument doesn't fail though as i have said on occasions it works. Clearly it won't on many occasions, in fact the majority of the time. But if you are determined enough to take the step of sending out tailored letters it can work as it has done for me personally. I agree it should be to the HR Department ideally as they best know where to store or forward the CV. There is no right or wrong though - it is one suggestion that some will like and some won't, as is your suggestion of visiting places in person. What is proactive to someone is an irritant to another.

For reference my organisation is based across each continent on the globe and we positively try and encourage specualtive applications as a cost effective way to boost our pool of available candidates.

I work in HR in the public sector and we often receive speculative CV's. We send them a bog standard letter saying 'thanks for your application' but we don't accept speculative CV's.

You'll probably find in many public sector organisations that they advertise all of their positions because of Equal Opps and so you will need to apply directly for that post. It is the line manager who shortlists applications against set criteria so a speculative application is unlikely address all of the set criteria.

On a more practical level, our recruitment team don't have the time to look through the speculative CV's and match them to vacancies, so they just tend to 'sit' in a pile for months.

Speculative applications can work, so I'm not trying to put you off, its just that I've worked in various public sector organisations and we've never accepted them.

If you do go down the spec route, your best bet is to find out the name of the person who is responsible for recruiting - that way the letter should get to them. Don't address it to the 'HR Director', as they will invariably pass it down to admin, who probably won't do much with it.

Find out a little bit about the company you are applying to. You don't need to go overboard, but a few lines of why you are interested in the company goes a long way.

Good luck.