Resume and Cover Letter Hell

Jason Davis at Recruiting.com points to Resume Hell, a blog started by an anonymous recruiter which highlights "dumb stuff" he/she reads on resumes.

Yikes ! Is that a line from my resume?

While on that subject, please don't send me resumes. I am not a recruiter. Yes I do blog about recruiting. And I also blog about movies and books. But that doesn't make me a director or an author.

On that note, here is one email that someone (who shall remain unidentified) sent me. It should belong in "cover letter hell":

This is with referece to your advt. on google search regarding placement in L.N.Miital

Group. I am very interested to be a part of Mittal Group-Steel or other division.

In this regard, I am sending my CV for any suitable post in

Accounts, Purchase, HR Deptt, Cash Handling, Production Planning, Stores

or as Trainee.

Waiting positive response.

Hmm, as far as I remember I have never advertised on Google search regarding anything.

If one is "very interested" to be a part of Mittal Group-Steel why dilute that statement by adding "or any other division" ?

Adding all the business divisions in your letter will only showcase to the recruiter that you don't know what to do and you lack focus. Harsh maybe. Maybe you want to start working as a trainee in any organization, but using such an approach makes one want to hit the delete key and not even bother opening the attachment.

Oh another thing. Spellings. Don't ever (and I mean EVER) misspell the name of the company you are applying for. "LN Miital" merely shows that you don't really care that much about the organization. Or that you type too fast and never recheck on your work.

Anyone so careless does not deserve to be doing anything like cash handling, accounts, purchase or HR in any organization.

Do a spell check. "referece" will be shown as a typo even by MS Word, and don't use short forms like "advt." on your covering email.