I am not one of the main people considering applicants for Flock, but a lot of the resumes come across my virtual desk. I think a lot of the people could do a better job “selling” themselves.
I am surprised by how many of the emails just include “resume” in the subject, and an attachment. There is little or no text in the body of the email. There is no “cover letter” either in the body of the email, or as an attachment.
I am surprised by how many people do not present their abilities and accomplishments in the context of what Flock is doing. I know our site is currently vague, but there is information on other sites, and there is a lot of information on team members like Bart Decrem and Chris “factoryjoe” Messina. From my investigation on the Internet, I knew a lot about the types of projects members of Flock would be involved in before I even had talked to them. If you cannot pull the information, you may not get what we are all about, or what we are doing.
Without being a commercial, engage the people you are trying to be hired by in the environments that they operate in. How is that for vague 
Your resume should probably be online. Depending on the position that you are applying for, samples of your work should also be available online. Whenever possible demonstrate your experience.
The last thing is how many of the resumes that come in Microsoft’s .doc format. It does not effect your opportunity to be hired by Flock, but I have known people and companies (particularly “open source companies”) where using this format that lacks accessibility would mean your application would immediate be deleted. I recommend Portable Document Format (.pdf), plain text (.txt), or Rich Text Format (.rtf). “Printing to PDF” is an integrated feature of MacOS, and easily achieved in MSWin with PDFCreator.
Best of luck!
Technorati Tags: flock, flock.com, Joe Messina, Bart Decrem, PDFCreator, factoryjoe
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3 Comments
I forgot one thing, it also surprises me how many people that apply have not signed up @ http://www.flock.com
Actually with regards to PDF’s (although I totally agree with you on this one), you’d be surprised at how many companies don’t have PDF capability. I know it seems nuts but it has happened to me a few times in the past. I sent them my resume in PDF format (thinking it looked more professional, not to mention accessible) and they asked for a “standard” Word .DOC instead. Crazy, although I guess in their Microsoft Office Windows world, a Word .DOC is a standard open document for them.
As for writing a cover letter, I always assumed the body of the email was the cover letter. For most of these types of emails, I never followed the cover letter standard. Instead I always spoke truthfully from the heart relaying my passion and telling my story. I know that a lot of people in the “corporate” world would look at a non-cover letter unformatted email and probably delete it immediately but the best two jobs I had in the past were both attained this way. I basically just told them who I was, what I had done, where I was going, why their company was exciting to me, why I wanted to work for them, and what I could do for them. Ok, my emails were LONG but hey, I’d rather tell my story and be me than what some “suit” wants me to be.
Not sure if you are moderating comments, but here goes anyway:
Your tiny tiny world of concerns about *how* a resume is sent to you is kind of ridiculous. This SCREAMS the following to me as an applicant (though not applying to your company);
1) We are arrogant (obvious)
2) We have this insane belief that our software is better than anyone else’s (software is becoming commoditized, so it really needs to be the best)
3) We only hire people who “believe” like we do, though we won’t give you too much information because we are in stealth mode. (smart…not)
4) Because we are doing this now/first/biggest and located in Palo Alto, we got funding and thus will be a really big company. (NEVER have seen this before)
I don’t like to criticize without recommendations, so you should do this:
a) read http://www.ning.com/about-us.html -
b) read http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/the_top_10_things_that_arent_web_20.php
with Chris Messina’s comments.
c) Compare and contrast (a) and (b).
d) Based on your comparison, calculate date of implosion (or possible rescue acquisition by one of the big 4)
oh: Don’t like the “aol.com” email address because it speaks “joe public?” Hmmm, who’s fault is that: your’s or mine?
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[...] I returned to Victoria to spend some time with Lloyd and to find out that he received an offer from Flock Inc. who wanted him to start right away. Which he did! The original plan was for Lloyd to alternate months in Canada and California for the first 6 months, while I transitioned to move down with him. After the first month we decided that long distance was too difficult, so we planned for me to join him November 1st. [...]