Recently received the following email and wanted to share so that everyone else can benefit from this reader’s great idea:
Hi, Jeff:
I’m reading your Fee Collection Guide. Great book!
I wanted to share a technique I’ve been using for the last couple of years for deputizing candidates. Before sending their resume to a client, I first have them send me a cover letter that I can include with their resume. They usually address it to me expressing their interest in my client. If they address it to the client, I just convert it to a PDF file, add my digital post-it note, add security to the document, and send it off.
Almost all of my candidates will write a cover letter without question. If they don’t send it to me, it’s often a sign of their lack of motivation.
1 comment
Robin Milstead Feb 10, 2009 at 3:51 pm
My experience in recruiting has come from both sides of the house, as a full desk agency recruiter and also in house, as a Corporate Recruiter for one of my clients, a major oil and gas company in Houston where I supported our CFO organization. With that being said, I think cover letters are outdated. Only while I was in house and bored did I sit back and take the time to read a cover letter when determining whether I was going to move forward on that candidate. If I received a candidate from a recruiter, I expected a short write up on the candidate in the body of the email and then the resume. I want to read whats important and that is in the resume. If anything, I think that cover letters, if not kept short and sweet can hurt a candidate or the recruiter if they don’t know the specifics of grammar. While I was an Accounting and Finance recruiter, I have a degree in Literature, so errors in writing stood out to me.
I say save the time and make sure the resume looks crisp and forget the cover letter!
Robin Milstead
Performance Specialist- Recruiting
Administaff, Inc.
832-601-4406
robin_milstead@administaff.com