HR types and job-hunters: cover letter as attachment, or in email body?

[skydiver30960 0]

My job hunt continues despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Here's a question for you all...

Most job postings require you to email your resume and/or CV to somebody. Based on recent experience, I believe this person simply ignores your attachments, promptly deletes your email and returns to playing Angry Birds. Sorry, that was unnecessary, just a little frustrated lately. Anyhow, when submitting your resume for consideration for a job opening, should one put the cover letter in the body of the email, or should the email be something as short as "please see attached cover letter" and then include the cover letter as a Word document along with the resume and/or CV?

I feel the formatting of the Word document would look better, but I'm afraid that submitting the cover letter as an attachment would make it even easier to disregard.

Waddaya think?

Elvisio "As Bartles and Jaymes said: we thank you for your support" Rodriguez

P.S. If you are EVER the point person on a candidate search, PLEASE send a response to applicants. ANYTHING. I know you can't waste time. "Position filled, thanks." or "Qualifications not met." Anything that lets me know I'm not talking to empty space. I talk to myself enough as it is.

[warpedskydiver 0]

All as attachment.

When it if forwarded to those actually doing the hiring or interviews they may wonder where the cover let is and why you did not include one.

Many resumes and CV's are not actually read by a human, they are fed through software and rejected, what is not rejected is then read.

[skymama 35]

I read somewhere that you should put the cover letter in the body of the e-mail and the resume in an attachment. The theory was that since so many people get viruses from opening attachments, that is one way that they might be able to tell that you are a sincere applicant and they might actually open the attachment.

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[Guest]

Quote

My job hunt continues despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Here's a question for you all...

Most job postings require you to email your resume and/or CV to somebody. Based on recent experience, I believe this person simply ignores your attachments, promptly deletes your email and returns to playing Angry Birds. Sorry, that was unnecessary, just a little frustrated lately. Anyhow, when submitting your resume for consideration for a job opening, should one put the cover letter in the body of the email, or should the email be something as short as "please see attached cover letter" and then include the cover letter as a Word document along with the resume and/or CV?

I feel the formatting of the Word document would look better, but I'm afraid that submitting the cover letter as an attachment would make it even easier to disregard.

Waddaya think?

Elvisio "As Bartles and Jaymes said: we thank you for your support" Rodriguez

P.S. If you are EVER the point person on a candidate search, PLEASE send a response to applicants. ANYTHING. I know you can't waste time. "Position filled, thanks." or "Qualifications not met." Anything that lets me know I'm not talking to empty space. I talk to myself enough as it is.

You're wasting your time. HR pukes are the mandarins of the corporate world, and if you're going to get anywhere, you'll have to find a way to bypass them altogether. Their job is to keep you from getting one, plain and simple. You've got to get to know people on the inside, where the HR pukes have little influence. That's the key.

mh
.

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[Muffie 0]

Mark's got a point. After the first job out of college, all of my other jobs came from somehow getting around the HR process initially.

Try setting up informational interviews if you can (got a job offer that way once) or letting all of your friends that are in your field know that you're looking (did an internal transfer that way once).

Or find a company you really want to work for and someone who looks like they do what you want to do and just reach out to them directly. That's how I got a job a few years ago. That company never posted job openings.

[BIGUN 1,050]

I've never gotten a position by going through HR.
Networking and recommendations.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[Rick 67]

I'm not an HR person but I do hire for most positions for my company. Personally I like to see the cover letter in the body of the e-mail. Lets me know if I should even bother opening the resume. No matter how precise you are in your want add probabaly 60% of the applicants don't even meet the advertised criteria. And like Andrea said lets me know it is not spam that I should be leary of opening.

You can't be drunk all day if you don't start early!

[Hausse 0]

Which ever way you go, make sure you put your FULL NAME + what it is as the name of the attachments. It's VERY annoying if you have 100 e-mails and then have to try to figure out who's resume and cover letter is belonging to who's email.That's one of the reasons I prefer to have both as attachments, I can dowload them all into a folder and then if they are named smartly (which they never are) it would be easy to just go one by one. Also, e-mails have formatting problems etc. that make it look unprofessional even though it might have looked great on your computer.

[skydiver30960 0]

Thanks for the input everybody. I guess the best idea may be to do both: provide the cover letter in the body of the email and as an attachment.

I agree that having somebody on the inside is a much more sound way of getting into a company than through HR, but I have to work with what I have. I've had a few calls, and have a couple phone interviews planned, so things are beginning to happen; at least more than has happened in the past few months.

Thanks again;

Elvisio "reinventing myself" Rodriguez

[Andy9o8 0]

Quote

I guess the best idea may be to do both: provide the cover letter in the body of the email and as an attachment.

Exactly. And if you prefer the nice formatting of MS Word, copy the cover letter from Word and then paste it directly into the text box of your e-mail. If you do it that way, most e-mail systems will retain the formatting as it appears in Word in the text body of your e-mail. I often send letters, reports, memoranda, etc. to people via e-mail, and that's the technique I use to retain a professional-looking format. I've done it in G-mail, Outlook, AOL and Yahoo.

[NWFlyer 2]

Quote

I've never gotten a position by going through HR.
Networking and recommendations.

What he said. Start reading this site: www.asktheheadhunter.com

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[hcsvader 1]

If there is a job that I really want I will send my resume and cover letter. Then, I will track down the person that does the hiring.
Find the contact info of the company that is hiring.
Call reception and ask to speak to the person in charge of hiring, or sometimes they use a 3rd party recruiter. Find out who this person is.

Then I call them, tell them who I am and begin to ask them questions about the job.

Even if they haven't seen my resume it put my name in thier head and maybe when they come across my reume they will spend a little more looking at it.

I've gone as far as to go to the head office of a company and ask to speak with the person hiring regarding my resume. If it is a place that is hiring a large amount of people they may not know if you were meant to be called in for an interview or not.

Have you seen my pants?
it"s a rough life, Livin' the dream
>:)

[warpedskydiver 0]

In was told long ago to be careful of the job that you apply for, because they will hire me.

I have never gone to see about a job without staying a few hours and walking out with a job.

Stayed friends with those folks to this day unless they are now deceased.

It's weird but before getting out of there we wind up talking about much more than the job.