Sending a CV or resume via email
I have been self employed for the last 5 years and my previous jobs to that were all offered to me without me having to apply. So now I am in a strange situation where the world has gone electronic and I have no idea of the protocols of applying for jobs via email. Do I send my CV or resume as an attatchment? Surely this way it could be edited? Or do I include it in the body of the email text? Should I attach my cover letter or use the main body of text for that? I am so out of touch 
Bring back good old letters 
Any help would be appreciated! |
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| Your email should be your cover letter.
The attachment should be your resume. ALWAYS include a cover letter which contains things NOT in your resume. That is short and to the point as lengthy will most likely mean they will not read it. You want to grab their eye and tell them pertinent info like when you can start working, that you will be in contact with them to set up an appt after you send the resume, and a sentence or two about why you'd make a great member of their team or something like that 
Good luck getting a job!! |
| actually as someone looking for a professional job - emails shouldn't be cover letters. both resumes and cover letters should be attachements to emails that are much shorter correspondences. |
| The material I looked up always said cover letter is main email. Reason being is... if you have it all as an attachment, you run the risk of them throwing it out before even reading something that would possibly catch their eye as they have no desire to click on attachments when going through 100's of applications.
Then again, the 8 books Mr. J have downstairs going over this all vary. ...some consider short being a page long cover letter while others say sweet and simple (a few sentences) is the best cover letter, so I'm sure info always is different depending on the source. |
| most of the postings are starting to say to respond witha cover letter attached - I guess it would be different if you were making cold "calls" than responding to postings. |
| It's perfectly fine for the email to act as the cover letter, but it is a bit nicer for both to be attached as (separate) Word or PDF documents, so that they can be printed out for the recruiter to share with the hiring manager. Do not worry about them being edited - you're sending them to recruiters, they're not interested in making you look bad. It's a non-issue.
Your cover letter should be unique to each specific position for which you apply, and emphasize the ways in which you would be the best candidate for the position. Your CV should reflect your accomplishments (e.g. Reduced oder fill-times by 17% by automating fulfillment process, etc.) as well as your experience (e.g. Responsible for overseeing the procurement of all major equipment purchases, etc.) Make sure that the verb tense and punctuation throughout your CV is consistent (generally past tense, no periods following bulleted lists). And finally, maybe even most importantly, make sure you are using a professional-oriented email address. Do not use something like oesluver @abc.com or another that may be cute and reflect your personality. It should be something like firsinitiallastname @abc.com or firstnamelastnameResume @abc.com. Recruiters use electronic folders to sort their emailed resumes, and you want yours to be easy to find. Plus, I could share with you an unbelievable list of bad email addresses I've collected over the years from candidates who were not even given a second glance because they couldn't be smart enough to come up with a professional email address (things like fancydancer14 @abd.com). We recipients of such email addresses share and make fun of the senders, just FYI. |
| All very good advice, but I'll add one more thing.
Not sure about the UK, but here in the States a lot of employers will not accept actual paper letters and resumes. My daughter recently got a job and every place she applied to insisted on filling out their online application. Any "snail mail" correspondence would be summarily tossed. |
Drezzie's Mom wrote: All very good advice, but I'll add one more thing.
Not sure about the UK, but here in the States a lot of employers will not accept actual paper letters and resumes. My daughter recently got a job and every place she applied to insisted on filling out their online application. Any "snail mail" correspondence would be summarily tossed. Completely true. Most companies of decent size will use an electronic applicant tracking system which means if it doesn't come electronically, someone at the company has to do data-entry of applicants into the ATS (this is due to employment record-keeping regulations). So to avoid that, they just eliminate that avenue. Small companies generally take them any way they can get them. |
| while we are at it - employers also google prospective employees - you may want to edit your MY space, You tube or other presences before you apply. drunken party photos will not get you a job over someone equally qualified with no evidence in cyberspace of non work activities. (no tthat you have any - just general advice) |
| Thank you for the advice so far. I have a sensible email address already set up and have never put my real name on anything like facebook, myspace or youtube thankfully. Neither are there any incriminating photos of me anywhere- my 'less sensible' times all happened well before the internet was popular thank goodness. The only thing they might find is my interest in sheepies I suppose but I use my full name for job interviews anyway.
I think I will send the cover letters as a seperate document, it just looks nicer set out as a seperate formal letter. |
| No advise, but best wishes in your job hunt!!!!!!!!! |
| With two sons who have applied and found their current dream jobs, I agree with the cover letter and resume as attachments, but suggest that the cover letter be the first page and resume the second page in the same document. Save the attachment as your last name dot first name. Especially helpful if your last name is early in the alphabet. Some of the firms save the file, so having one document is more convenient for them.
One page resumes are generally preferred. Tell all of you friends (business and personal) and family members that you are looking. Offer to email them you resume, if they are interested. You never know who has the contacts you need. Give them permission to pass it on. My husband's resume was sent to his current boss by four separate people, who had no connection to each other. Good luck. |
| Cassie you need to find out what the employer will accept as it will differ from company to company!
The advert should tell you what they expect. Send your CV as a PDF attachment if you can, if not just as a word attachment. Ensure you use arial or similar as your font, in 11 or 12 as some are not considered to be DDA compilant. Good Luck in your applications |
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