In recent recruiting drives for Bam Creative in the last six months, I have discovered some disturbing trends;
Spelling and grammar aren’t what they used to be
Given 95% of applicants for any job are university educated, I am shocked how many resumes or cover letters have basic spelling or grammatical errors. I’ve even had SMS speak – “c u tomorrow” appearing in correspondence with applicants.
We always state must have excellent written English skills, so how do these people get through university, let alone the first twelve years of education? They’re certainly not getting to the interview stage.
Data becoming redundant
A number of what us ‘old schoolers’ would consider mandatory details are now being left off resumes – date of birth, nationality, drivers license status, marital status and even interests are becoming redundant it seems. I don’t know about others, but I like to get an idea of who applicants are, as opposed to what they do.
Cover letters – what are they?
A high percentage of applicants seem to think it’s OK to email a resume with no cover letter or indeed any other information. Astounding.
Applicants with blogs
It’s interesting to note that as blogging becomes more prevalent, a percentage of applicants are using email addresses for personal domain names, which link through to blogs, and even web cams, which gives me a plethora of information to learn more about the applicant.
I’m even known to Google applicants names prior to an interview, so check to see what comes up under your name.
Research, research, research
What happened to the days where you tried to find out a little about the prospective employer before sending a resume and cover letter to them?
With the web, it makes it even easier to do a quick scan of their website, and add something to your cover letter (‘your work on projects such as XYZ and CompanyZ are right where I want to be’) which indicated you’ve taken the time to understand a little more about your potential employer.
Hopeless interview skills
I don’t know if we’re always getting applicants with no interview experience under their belts, but some people who look great on paper have failed miserably at interview stage. Turning up late, lack of eye contact, inappropriate attire, unable to hold a conversation, let alone answer my questions well, combined with a lack of displayed enthusiasm or confidence doesn’t fly well with me.
I’m concerned that educational institutions are pumping out these people into the workforce without seemingly any regard to their basic interview or job application skills.
I really believe that all students should be made to face a one day workshop covering the basics in what a prospective employer will expect – to educate someone for three or more years in their chosen vocation without these basic skills is just criminal – some of these people could be talented and go on to great careers, but if they can’t get past resume stage, they certainly are never going to find out for themselves.
Maybe some volunteers from our industry could “mock interview” some of these students towards the end of their degrees, and provide them with realistic (read: brutal) feedback about how they went?
In Summary
A big shout out to all of those applicants we’ve seen recently who have bucked the trend, and have been excellent – there really is some fantastic talent out there, and certainly an abundance of good people as of this writing. I wish you all the best of luck in your chosen fields, and look forward to seeing you blossom within the industry.
Entrepreneur, 
16 January 2006 at 10:54 pm
Miles,
As a new reader of your blog and a current job seeker, I would like to thank you for sharing your insights. You have helped show a more human perspective of the process which I think will help me in my search for a job.
As always it is the small things that one notices, such as the effort taken to find out about a prospective employer, that shows your true value for a position.
I hope you found a valuable developer to work in your creative environment.
16 January 2006 at 10:59 pm
I was thinking about that just yesterday, and I think it could also be a good exercise to have students write up their resumés, then swap and access at least 5 others, from the point of view of an employer. I’ve picked up ways of improving my own resumé when I read the ones that came through. I believe that applicants who did not write cover letters put themselves at a great disadvantage. Cover letters can be what earns an applicant an interview. After all, for a job position that requires PHP and MySQL, most people would have these two skills and the stats, if I may call it that, end up being pretty similar. Cover letters are where an applicant can state his/her qualities/differentiators. However, applicants should give examples to back these up.
16 January 2006 at 11:36 pm
Age, ethnicity, and marital status are not (usually) appropriate or legal criteria for employment: you are not permitted to make them mandatory. Drivers License status is important for certain jobs, like driving.
Nonetheless, I certainly wear my wedding ring to interviews and know others who wear rings, whether married or not. For the most part, this information can rarely help the applicant and tends to give reasons for the interviewer to screen you out.
As for interests, I would have to cut my accomplishments even more than I have in order to fit in a series of made-up hobbies or interests that I haven’t pursued in years.
17 January 2006 at 8:16 am
Thanks Shane, Fred & Chris for your comments. I just wanted to clarify, I’m not after details on age, ethnicity or marital status, etc in order to screen people out, more to get an understanding who the person is, rather than their technical or design skillset.
One look at the range of ages, nationalities and marital status of our staff at Bam will prove I don’t discriminate, however it’s a valid point and a very sad fact that some employers would.
I am a firm believer in understanding more about the personality of an applicant than a resume can show in order to judge them for their suitability for a position, these points just help me get an understanding of who the applicant is as a person.
There isn’t any point in putting interests that are made up – I agree. However, certainly you have some passions within your vocation that you could list as interests?
17 January 2006 at 9:03 am
they put underpaid retards in charge of schools, what do we expect as the end product
17 January 2006 at 5:44 pm
I agree with Shane. Applicants when applying for any job in the industry should provide satisfactory examples of work previously undertaken. If you are applying for a developer’s position which requires PHP, MySQL & XHTML/CSS skills, you should provide at minimum, one sample of your work so your potential employer can really see what skills you possess.
As Miles points out, most applicants have some form of homepage on the internet, wether it be a blog or a few static pages strung together to provide information to potential employers and to convey details about yourself, so beware, you are being “Googled”.
I understand where you’re coming from Miles, if I were to employ someone or be employed by someone, I think they should know more than my name, address, phone number and work history. It allows you to have a better relationship.
18 January 2006 at 7:46 am
My personal fave: getting an email job application that has been quite openly cc’d to every single web development company in town. I can’t think of a better way to demonstrate to a potential employer that you are unbelievably lazy… or that you have no idea how email works. Sadly we get these all the time.
18 January 2006 at 9:17 am
“getting an email job application that has been quite openly cc’d to every single web development company in town”
yeah, that was me… but it still got me into an interview and then the job… admittedly it was 4 years ago and it was more a matter of desperation than carefully thought out planning – I wouldn’t suggest it to anybody now, it’s much better to find out who the Directors are and write to them specifically… However at least I was living in Australia and had relevant qualifications – as opposed to living in India with an Aeronautical Engineering Degree (not an exageration, I have seen resumes like that)… and I was amazed at how many people didn’t have ANY examples of their work on the few occasions when I have been looking through job applications…
18 January 2006 at 10:31 am
hi miles,
I is so glad u got yer own bog!
granma and spillin is very Impotent….yer so rite!
so many people these dayes dunt have proper edumacation.
anyway….ave a grape day!!!
18 January 2006 at 10:39 am
Yeh I agree wiv Fred. Requesting personal info like age just pigeon holes the applicant into a salaray bracket. Otherwise all the other stuff u mentioned is on par with interview standards.
18 January 2006 at 11:34 am
Miles, thank you so much for posting what you think – it’s going to help me when I finish Uni this year in writing my resume – the idea of having mock interviews is great too – you’re right, we haven’t learnt anything like this yet at Uni in Sydney.
18 January 2006 at 12:24 pm
People are too lazy these days and they expect the world to come to them. It only takes a few hours to search the web for advice on preparing for an application and to research the company, write a cover letter (even using the spell checker… hard work that) and generally putting a bit of effort into your application. Can you blame the universities? Most of them have services to offer this kind of help in place but generally it’s the student’s responsibility to make use of them…
18 January 2006 at 1:27 pm
I agrree with Mistar Peebodi. There har plenty of spelchekers onlyne, the only difikulti is piking the write languidge, az its impotent to insure prosspecdiv reeders undrastand wots ritten. Uzing a thesorus is alsoo wize to insure the correkt meening of the werd is used.
18 January 2006 at 8:03 pm
I reckon those who are complaining or acting silly in the comments are the unemployed. The rest of us have figured out what it takes to land a job.
Excellent article – I will be sure to forward it to my “just finished university” friends.
19 January 2006 at 2:29 pm
Kate,
I think you will find those who are ‘complaining’ are working in the industry. Everyone is entitled to their own point of view and does’nt have to be a suck.
Cry me a river.
23 January 2006 at 4:46 pm
Will take those suggestions onboard Miles. How are you doing? I hope everyone’s doing great at BAM and I wish you another succeessful year.
31 January 2006 at 11:52 am
hy piles,
I neva sissies to maze me how pepole dun bover wiv getin a descent edukation!!! u & mee r a dyeing breed fur shure!!
I fink yer Grape 🙂
9 March 2006 at 2:57 pm
Going back to Shane’s comments about students proofing other students resumes…
Universities usually contain a central university-wide set of resources available to students (as opposed to services offered by Schools and/or Faculties).
As a postgrad interactive multimedia student at ECU who is also working full-time and trying to break into industry, I have made ample use of the ECU Careers Advisory Service. Their staff have helped me:
– update, proof and appropriately format my resume
– create cover letters for specific vacanies
– workshop inverview skills
Although I can’t speak about what resources other unis have available for their students, the ECU service is absolutely fantastic. They also offer workshops in specific areas related to job-seeking skills and preparing documentation. They run career weeks, invite employers in talk to students, assist students in finding work experience placements…etc
And they do make themselves as visible as they possibly can…so that ECU students are aware of what services they offer.
I guess the onus is on the specific student as to whether they take that opportunity up and use the resources they have available to them…
It says alot about your potential employee if they did/didn’t take make use of such resources when they are freely available and easily accessible to them.
For your reference, the ECU Careers Advisory Service site is located here:
http://www.ecu.edu.au/SSC/Careers/
NB – although I did my undergrad degree at Murdoch, I didn’t investigate what similar services they have available to students at the time…silly me. Thank goodness we can learn from our mistakes!
5 June 2007 at 2:34 pm
Thank you! your opinions and advice have given me insight to a topic I have been so unsure of. I have recently completed placement and am required as part of assessment to complete a job application. I’m sure information like yours has given me a little more confidence to do this. (out of workforce 20 years)