Why Are You Spamming People?

Why Are You Spamming People?

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

One of the reasons I like Gmail as much as I do is because its spam filter is extremely good. The spam filter the local ISP provides is horrible and requires that every time I open it, I have to manually create rules that direct future emails from the spammer go directly to my delete files. It is too time-consuming, so I’ve switched to Gmail and abandoned the ISP’s email account for me to the spammers.

At work, every day, I used to arrive to at least 100 and, more often, 150+ emails from individuals whose resumes in no way shape or form reflected the specifics of the requirements of the job description they were applying for.

I wondered why they sent the resume because they were no more than spam to me.

Many people are brought up with the idea that if your resume fits 20% of the requirement, you send it because maybe . . . and then get angry when no one contacts that.

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Or that if a recruiter does work in a specific field, but the ad doesn’t fit your experience, you send them your resume because they might have something else.. . and then you get angry when no one contacts you.

This strategy may work with junior recruiters but is frustrating to people like me who had highly demanding lives and extremely demanding clients.

So let me explain why this was so troublesome.

On Monday, if I walked into 100 new resumes, called and spoke to each person for 5 minutes, it would take 5 hours to qualify every person. I would have done nothing to help the people who contacted me on Friday who may or may not have fit the requirements. By the way, I probably wouldn’t actually speak to everyone; I’d need to leave messages that may or may not be responded to that day. I would need to keep everyone’s resume organized and easily locatable so that when they decide they’d have the time to call back, I could easily retrieve it which delayed my contacting someone from that day’s group of 100 resumes.

And then I would have discovered that the resume was sent speculatively.

I know I am not unique in having this problem. Recruiters I was connected with all over the country would lament that they spend all day reading one useless resume after another.

So, here’s a piece of simple and EXTREMELY USEFUL ADVICE. If you have the experience that is required of the job, make sure it is in your resume, even if that means adding it to your basic standard resume.

Do not just include it in a cover letter or cover email; PUT IT IN THE RESUME. Pretend that someone even busier than I was would be reviewing it so MAKE YOUR RELEVANT EXPERIENCE OBVIOUS.

By doing that, you will get many more interviews and your resume won’t look like spam.

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