Crossed Wires

I think a misunderstanding has just cost me potentially 5 different roles. You may remember a week or so ago that I posted about the never ending internships, my hope that as they were designed for people just like me I would get one and the desire to hear back.

I heard back. The rejections began to start arriving. One company provided feedback and thus started the cascade. After exchanging emails several times with GJS I recieved detailed feedback on my covering letter and then it dawned on me and suddenly it made sense why I was being rejected and why another department in the same company had picked up my C.V and offered me an interview. It was down to the purpose of the covering letter. The following was the description on the GJS site:

If you are interested in finding out more about this exciting opportunity please register with the GJS website, or simply log in and attach your CV with along with a covering letter explaining how you think you will benefit from this experience.

I clearly read too much into this. Misread the intention and tailored my covering letter to convince someone at GJS I needed this internship and would struggle without it.

In actuality I was not meant to do this. I was meant to write your standard covering letter explaining why you are good for the company and the role. This meant I had intentionally undersold myself, played down what I had done up to now and painted myself as an individual in desperate need of some experience.

It may surprise you to know this is not what most companies are after. I wrote for the wrong target audience and for the totally wrong purpose and although I have learned of my mistake and can ensure I do not make it in future, I cannot help but feel for the outstanding applications it's just a case of waiting for the rejections to roll in.

Who are you?

I have been writing this blog for many months now and have amassed quite a number of posts on various issues all within the same general job seeking area.

At various times people have posted to discuss comments, either here or on facebook where these entries are published as notes.

And I am curious. Who are you reader and why do you read? One of the issues with online writing is you are not sure who your readers are and this is something that greatly interests me.

So I ask you, put a short comment on this with your name and why you read. Let my curiosity be satisfied.