From: ejh@khonshu.colorado.edu (Edward J. Hartnett)
Subject: Re: Interview Experiences?
Organization: Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences
Distribution: world, local
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 18:22:53 GMT

In article <92205.113748CERLPDR@TECHNION.BITNET> CERLPDR@TECHNION.BITNET writes:
>>merolajs@vtcc1.cc.vt.edu (JOSEPH S. MEROLA DEPT OF CHEMISTRY VPI&SU) writes:
>
>>     Okay, so how do you make sure that you are seriously considered
>>even if you deviate somewhat from the advertised area?  First, spell
>>out explicitly in your cover letter why you think you are an
>>appropriate candidate for the position even with the difference in
>>specialties.   Second, call the institution and speak with the
>>department chair and/or the chair of the search committee.  Discuss
>>your qualifications and how they might fit in. (Personal contact is
>>much more effective in getting your qualifications considered.  At the
>>very least, this may spur someone into giving your application a
>>second look.
>
>   While sound, this advice is a little impractical given the number of
>applications made by the average candidate. When one is sending one or two
>hundred applications one cannot afford to spend several days on each. The
>work to potential gain ratio is too small.
>
>
>                          John Tolman, PhD

I can contribute to this, I think. I just spent 4 months on a job search,
and ended up sending out over 200 resumes. I had a great system, which I will
now share with you (since I already have a job, so I don't have to worry
about competition:-)

I kept a notebook, and every job possibility got a number. If it was a want
ad, I cut it out and taped it in, if it was just a contact I wrote it down.
From that point on, every contact, letter, etc. was noted in the notebook
next to the ad. This prevented the very embarassing but common problem of
wondering who the hell was calling you for an interview, since you can't
remember the names of 200 companies! As soon as someone called me I would 
be chatting with them, and maybe ask them to wait, while I found the entry. 
Or maybe I would just take down the info and find the entry later and transcribe
it then.

For resumes I went to a copying place. First I did it on a macintosh (the job-hunt
machine of choice for me). Show your resume to all your friends, family, and
strangers, and ask for suggestions. Some people like to go with several different
resumes. This addresses the point above about a different letter and resume for 
every job. In fact, there will be 3 or 4 different types of jobs you are applying
for. Take me, for example. I was applying for jobs in the following categories:
FORTRAN programming, Unix system administration, database programming, scientific
data management, and electrical or computer engineering. Here's how a typical week's
job-hunt would work:
	I'd get the Sunday paper on Saturday and look through for any jobs that
looked even possible. I'd take them out and tape them in the notebook. Usually
I'd end up with about 20 possibilities (keep your eyes open for duplicates from
last week, you'll look pretty silly if you apply to the same job twice). Then
I go to a mac with printer (my roommate's) and do my first letter, let's say
it's for a Unix sysadmin job. Then I look through all my other job possibilities 
for Unix jobs, copying the letter and modifying it slightly. Each letter was
in a separate file called letNN, where NN is the number of the job in my notebook.
Then I do the next set of letters, for FORTRAN, say. Print em out, stick in the
resume, and have them all in Monday's mail. You can have 4 or 5 different types
of resumes, one for each type of job, if you want. I just used the same resume
for each.
	Believe me, this system was great. Here's some pointers:

	You need to get ready access to a computer with a good quality printer for
the letters. The resumes must really be done on a laser printer or copied, but
a mac imagewriter is plety good enough for the letters.

	There is no right format for either resume or letter. The person getting these,
and looking at them, is someone just like you (except he or she has a job). So
don't think there's some secret resume format that these people know, and if you
don't use it they'll just throw your resume away without looking at it. It has
to be neat and professional, and look great, of course, but how you do that will vary
depending on your past experience and such. I was very heavily involved in
newspapers and publications in college and previous jobs, so I have an eye for
layout. Try and find someone like that to look at your resume.

	Buy a lot of high quality paper, envelopes, stamps and such right away.
Don't do it piecemeal. If you get a job before you use them all up, who cares?
The key thing is convenience. If it's really convenient for you to do this, you
will be able to do more of them, do them better, and get them out faster. For
this reason you should also have at least 100 resumes printed (AFTER you settle 
on a final design that has been looked at by many people and spell-checked 
several times!). You never want to be in a possition where you have a job ad,
a letter written, but no paper, or no stamps, or no envelopes, or no resumes.

	You have to find EASY access to a computer and printer. If you're
going to have to be commuting an hour to wait on line at your school computing
center every time, then obviously you're not going to get as many letters out.

	Even if an ad is weeks old and you forgot/didn't get to it, you might
as well go ahead and send it out. In fact I got my current job through a letter
that I sent in weeks after the job I was applying for was filled. Here (and in
other places) they keep a stack of resumes handy, and every time they need someone
they look through there. If they find someone, they might not advertise the job
at all.

	Alwayus keep the notebook, paper, and resume copies together in a
briefcase. When you go to the interviews that are sure to follow, bring it all
with you. Several people I interviewed with seemed to be most impressed with
my job-hunt notebook. They like the organized systematic approach, I guess.

	Seiously, I developed this system over the first three months, but it
wasn't really cooking until month 4. In that month I got three of four times
the numebr of interviews that I got in the previous 3 months combined. In
month 4 I was sending out 30 letters a week, and each was individual and
to the point, and the whole process was taking only about 2 hours.
	The days of simple, easy job hunts are apparently over, so my advice
is: apply your training to your job hunt. Do it syustematically and on a 
big scale from the beginning. Another piece of advice is to assume it
will take months. Find a job right away for money (I was a cook). That is
the best way to avoid despair; if you know that you can keep the effort up
indefinately, you don't much mind that it's taking so long. If you're living
off your savings and you see them dwindling and dwindling, it's really
depressing.

	Sorry this was so long. One last piece of advice, which I read once.
This is a summary of a typical job hunt: no no no no no no no no no no no yes.
Don't let the rejections get you down. Get used to them. You'll get plenty!

				Ed Hartnett