How NOT to Get a Job in the Communications Industry

Hodgson/Meyers is an award-winning marketing communications agency in Kirkland Washington. They focus on improving their client’s B2B communications. Gary Meyers, the president of Hodgson/Meyers, receives many job inquiries from the college aged demographic. His experience is like mine, in that most of them blow it entirely.

Earlier this week, Meyers blogged about some recent communications he’s received from those with college degrees in English or Communications. He provided two examples. Here’s the first:

Inquiry #1 (name changed, spelling, punctuation and grammar per original):

Hello,
my name is Janie Doe, Im interested in getting into advertising and
trailor making of major motion pictures and i came across your
company. I’m a graduate of the UW in 05/09 and am looking for
an internship possibility or if your hiring some time soon
thank you
Janie

Gary offers these poor unfortunates four points of good advice. Here’s his first:

1. Use proper spelling and grammar. Not lower-case text slang riddled with misspelled words and poor punctuation. You are looking for a job in a field where professional communications skills are critical. Reading the above email is painful.

See all of Gary’s advice, and one more painful example, here:
http://blog.hodgsonmeyers.com/2009/10/01/how-not-to-get-a-job-in-the-communications-industry

Any company that offers complimentary tattoos of the Pileated Woodpecker would be a cool place to work. Click the link to Spike’s page to get yours. (Maybe Hodgson/Meyers will send me some for my Cub Scouts!)

UPDATE 13-OCT-09: For more NotJobs tips on how NOT to get that PR/Marketing/Communications agency job, see these postings:

• How Not to Get a Job: Bad Cover Letter/Bad Presence [28-AUG-07]
• How Not to Get a Job: Cover Letters from Hell [11-NOV-07]
• Now Not to Get a Job: Just Ask [22-FEB-08]

You’re FIRED!! (And, you haven’t even been hired yet)

Curt MacRae writes the job advice column for the Examiner.com in Detroit. Last month, he had some great tips on how to get bounced from a job in the interview process. Here’s a snippet from “You’re FIRED!! and, you haven’t even been hired yet!“

Then, the innocent question gets asked about what you’re looking forward to at this company that you may not have had in your previous position.  You can’t resist, and in fact, go into explicit detail about how you absolutely cannot wait to dump that slug you used to work for.  You provide a litany of grievances you had against your supervisor, and the unreasonable and unappreciative company hierarchy, all the way to the top.

As you might imagine, the answer to this question got the job offer rescinded.

MacRae contiues the narrative and then concludes with six useful tip for the jobseeker. Check it out by clicking here!

How Not to Get a Job as a Tutor

Nancy from Texas

Nancy is a teacher from Houston, Texas, who also runs a blog called Nancy’s Garden Spot. Last year about this time, she posted about her experience in trying to recruit and hire tutors to teach Reading and Math. She has run into some of the classic follies with resumes and interviews. Here are her thoughts on the process:

How NOT to Get a Job

Recently, we posted an ad on Craigslist to hire some new tutors, both Math and Reading. In the ad, we specifically stated that replies should include a resume and cover letter and information about teaching or tutoring experience. The Learning Center I work for has a very low student to teacher ratio and we individualize for EACH child. Teachers are preferred, though Math tutors who are willing to learn methodology (how to teach or reteach effectively), are welcome too.

I’ve received some very good responses, more than we can hire right now, though we’d love to have them all.

Still, there are the ones you just read and wonder: “What the HELL were they thinking?”

Nancy goes on:

But for sheer briefness, brusqueness and, well, bad manners, this one took the cake:

I have great training in reading for
beginners through grade 2 and I taught
all subjects in first grade. Please
tell me exactly where you are located
and salary if interested in me for
part time work.

She did include a VERY brief sort of resume, included in the body of the message. She did have some experience as a teacher, and might have been…worth interviewing… at least. However, all things did not proceed well for her.

This prompts Nancy to write a reply (which we can’t tell if she sent.)

Ms X, I’d like to make some constructive suggestions for when you respond to other advertisements for tutors or tutoring positions, so that you might correct some of the missteps you’ve made with me.

1). Read the ad, and follow the requests. For example: We asked for a resume and a cover letter. These are, usually, provided by the applicant in an attachment.

2) Your emails to me have been rather…demanding. Remember, you are asking for a job. I’m not begging you to take it. Courtesy counts for a lot. Starting your emails with a “Hello” or “Good Morning”… sets a more courteous tone.

See the whole thing:

http://nancysgardenspot.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-not-to-get-job.html

Summer Break is over!

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your patience as I took a desperately needed summer break. Instead of locking myself inside at the keyboard, I got out and did some camping, helped with a few scout activities and worked on growing a face cord of zucchini. I also got to work on some interesting projects at work.

However, I did miss commenting on a few items over the summer, topics like:

• Ricci v. DeStefano aka the New Haven Firefighter Testing Case, in June.
• The July article on How Not to Write a Resumes by Max Messmer, chairman and CEO of Robert Half Intl.
• The recent college grad who sued Monroe College because she hasn’t found a job (on CNN in August), diploma shown above.
• The Canadian Navy’s employment branding campaign tackles recruiting problems (also in August).

Ah, but it is good to be back.

NotJobs: How NOT To Get a Job Interview

Dustin Williams, a career counselor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, has a career advice column on the InkKC blog.  In his recent column, Dustin covers his top 5 tips on How NOT To Get a Job Interview.  His topics are:

5. Use an unprofessional email address: Smokedog420@whatever.com or 1hotmama@youwish.com
4. Not following instructions when submitting application materials
3.  Submit a junky resume
2. Have cute/sleazy/stupid human trick pictures on social media sites
1. Avoid networking!

See the full details on the InkKC weblog:
http://www.inkkc.com/dustin+williams/blog/4062

NotJobs: How Not To Nail An Interview

Steinar Skipsness describes himself as “a 27 year old Seattle native who doesn’t drink coffee.” Skipsness consults on search engine marketing, but seems to be looking for new employment. To help his chances, he taped mock interviews with some unsuspecting candidates.  I’m not sure I agree with his ethics, but his conclusions are strong.

Skipsness offers his 22 tips on “How to Nail an Interview.” His site contains a number of video snippets which support his points. As shown in the video above, some of his examples better demonstrate how NOT to get a job.

IMHO, his top ten tips are:

3. Be on time
4. Cell phone off
5. Know the company, and why you want to work there
8. Dress in a clean conservative manner
9. [Facebook & MySpace] Profiles to private
11. Don’t babble
12. Don’t badmouth a boss
14. Don’t play with your face/hair
19. Have accomplishments
20. Have passion

Take a look at all 22 tips on his web page:
http://www.howtonailaninterview.com/

How Not to Get a Job: Job Fair Division

Don’t do this:

Hat tip to Boozeworthy for the image!

NotJobs: The Interview That’ll Bag a Job (or NOT)

From the 14 April Wall Street Journal comes an article with tips on How Not to Interview:

The Interview That’ll Bag a Job

By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

In recent weeks, recruiters for Consolidated Container Co. have seen job candidates arrive up to an hour early for interviews. Other candidates have alluded to financial hardships while in the hot seat, and one person even distributed bound copies of documents describing projects he completed for past employers.

These sorts of tactics aren’t exactly winners.

Not winners, but tips to remember (to avoid.) The article goes on:

At an interview, you want to stand out for the right reasons. To do so, you’ll need to leave your baggage and anxiety at the door. For starters, wait until 10 minutes before your scheduled interview time to announce yourself. Arriving any sooner “shows that you’re not respectful of the time the hiring manager put aside for you,” says Loubaton, adding that a candidate who arrived an hour early made workers uncomfortable. “Companies really don’t want someone camped out in their lobby.”

The earliest I’ve seen a candidate arrive was over 75 minutes before the interview. That candidate wasn’t hired either.

If all has gone well, don’t stalk the interviewer. Wait at least a week before checking on your candidacy. “There’s a fine line between enthusiasm and overenthusiasm.”

Indeed!

See Needleman’s  whole article here.

NotJobs: Be a Stalker

Martin Burns recruits for ZoomInfo, and blogs about our art at the Good to Know blog. A while back, Martin posted a great observation about what happens when Persistent Job Hunting turns into Stalking:

Seriously. There’s a line between getting noticed, and getting blocked. If you’re right for the job, and you do the right things to get your resume/ blog/ whatever in front of the right person, they’ll call you. If you know they’ve seen your information, and you don’t get the call – well, all the repetitive e-mailing/ insisting on “networking over coffee”/ yada-yada isn’t going to change the fact that you’re not right for the job.

What it will do is burn you into the memory of the people you’ve harassed – in a bad way. If/ when a job comes up that you’d actually be a fit for, you won’t get called. You might get slapped with a restraining order, but you won’t get called…

See all of the essay Burns wrote here: Don’t Be a Stalker

Believe me – the stalking happens. Before I started with my current employer, my team had to get a restraining order against one obnoxious applicant who continually showed up. Mr. Candidate was rude and abrasive to the people trying to help him, and eventually turned obscene. That is one applicant we won’t be calling.

NotJobs: How NOT to get a job with Twitter

Last week, a young, tech savvy 20-something named Connor Riley posted this snarky Tweet on Twitter. Cisco employees noticed and called her on it. The incident blew up into an internet meme tagged “Cisco Fatty“. Lately, Ms. Riley has been on MSNBC trying to explain how dumb her action was.

Back in January, James Andrews, an executive VP from Ketchum PR, tweeted about how horrible he found Memphis (above). Andrews was in town to speak at FedEx, a company headquartered in Memphis. A FedEx employee found the tweet, and sent it to Vice Presidents, Directors and the management at Ketchum. Andrews ended up having to apologize.

The moral here is – don’t be stupid in public. Also – don’t say anything in a social media forum that Social media can give you your fifteen minutes of fame. Just make sure that you get famous for the right things. Just as Kevin Colvin found out, there is no privacy on the Internet.

Here is a roundup of these stories – Cisco Fatty:

• Hello. My name is Connor Riley. There are things you should know.
• Getting the skinny on Twitter’s ‘Cisco Fatty’
• How Not to Get a Job Via Twitter
• The Twitter ‘Cisco Fatty’ saga: Interesting follow up
  
• ‘Cisco Fatty’ incident provides cautionary tale to those who tweet about work
• Twitter thread on Cisco Fatty
• Cisco Fatty web page

Key Influencer in Memphis:

• Worst Twitter Post Ever: Ketchum Exec Insults Fedex Client on Mini-Blog
• How Not to be a Key Online Influencer
• Advertising Age: Ketchum Employee Sets Off Tempest in a Tweetpot
• 3 social media nightmares

On that note: Check out this view of the “Twouble with Twitters“