Would you progress people to an interview if they don’t provide a covering letter?

I’m recruiting external applicants for the first time, always managed to get people on an internal promotion before. Seems to be a split between overqualified people providing speculative CVs and under qualified people over egging their experience in a covering letter.

I’m tempted to just reject anyone who didn’t write the letter, because, unsurprisingly I guess given the current economic climate, I’ve got more applications than I have time to read them, hence doing it at 10:00pm on a Friday night 😯

Throw half in the bin at random. That way you’ll have got rid of all the unlucky people in one fell swoop 😉

Did you ask for a covering letter?

Had over 150 appilcants for a receptionist post recently. Lots provided covering letters. However I binned any that were obviously genereic and made no mention of the special requirements of the job (In a vet practice some mention of liking animals is usually preferable!)

So essentially if it ain’t relevant to your offered post bin it.

Did you ask for a covering letter?

The companies website asks candidates to upload a CV and coving letter yes.

Also lots are generic too, so edging towards that approach too bruk…

In that case, bin the ones that can’t follow clear instructions….

Whenever my wife is looking for new staff, she always asks for a hand written cover letter. Not to check the applicants hand writing but to check if they can follow simple instructions. Even with the hand written cover letter request, around 70% of the CV’s she receives have typed letters! Needless to say those applicants are not invited for an interview.

As far as she is concerned, it is a quick way of eliminating unsuitable applicants, who can’t follow simple instructions.

In a vet practice some mention of liking animals is usually preferable!

yet to be a receptionist for a doctor you clearly have to loathe people

In a vet practice some mention of liking animals is usually preferable!

yet to be a receptionist for a doctor you clearly have to loathe people

Therein lies an illustration of the difference between private and public services 😆

shotsaway

Hand written letter?

There must be another way to test following simple instructions in the process without doing that.

I imagine a lot of people who are viable candidates wouldn’t bother sending one because of that.

If you are trying to reel off 50 job apps, are you going to spend loads of time on that one (with the hand written letter).

Sorry to go on the warpath… but I was 😯

If you asked for one and didn’t get it, bin it. Failure to follow instructions, shows lack of care, interest, or competence (unless it’s a role that requires no paper handling I suppose)

People will say “You might miss out on the best candidate”- realistically you’re not likely to choose the best candidate anyway, there are more factors making this unlikely than likely.

The worst mistake I ever made was to try and evenhandedly and methodically review a huge applicant list to get the best candidates, fairly- by halfway through I was losing my mind and looking for excuses to bin them. Far better IMO to do a high level cull or two in order to get the survivors down to a realistic level. It feels wrong but IMO it’s the most realistic option.

I really dislike standardised covering letters for that matter, just shows a lack of interest. I understand why people do it but I reckon if they’re at the point where they’re submitting a hail of applications and aren’t sufficiently interested to tailor their covering letter, there are probably other candidates who are. I’m just back into work but if I’d ever caught myself applying for things with that little thought I’d have been pretty unhappy.

you may as well just dismiss a load of them at random, rather than coming up with random excuse to dismiss a load of them

If you have a lot of CV’s to review, review those that prove the applicants have imagination. After twenty odd years of interviewing people for jobs in my sector, I’d say the best applicants are always those who display a bit of individuality. If something they say makes you laugh, or cry, or think or angry, ….interview them. People who can think for themselves are worth twenty people who can’t.

Look for the different.

brakes – Member

you may as well just dismiss a load of them at random, rather than coming up with random excuse to dismiss a load of them

A random excuse, sure, throwing away 30% because you prefer Arial to Times New Roman or something would be daft. But this isn’t random at all.

1st pass through the pile of CVs the culling criteria is number of pages and font.
More than 2 pages…out
Font I don’t like….out
Simples