Pear-ish @pear--ish - Tumblr Blog

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Welcome to my blog!

I'm an ex-vangelical LGBT+ ally somewhere in the US.

Make me ponder!

#exvangelical #lgbt rights #lgbtq ally #ally #self love #philosophy #philosophical #master debater

divorce-enjoyer

ice water is awesome because you get more water in your water

pear--ish

moveslikekeithrichards

this might be kind of a reach but is there a way for printers to connect to devices so that documents can be printed from them

homunculus-argument

God will see you at the lowest point of your life, and say "what the fuck I thought I killed that thing." But you skitter too fast and you are too creepy.

smeared1992

you used to be able to get a job just by circling a listing in a newspaper in red pen

modernbaseball

2 am: bedtime were meant to be broken 😈

7 am: I hope i get in a car accident

nemfrog

Stylized heraldic design motifs for interior decoration.

Studies in design. 1876. Christopher Dresser.

Internet Archive

seren-starlight

Nobody really knows what makes a person go to bed

girldraki

kind of harmonically beautiful

Alternate timeline in which all Greek and Latin roots are swapped:

catastrophe -> contraverse cephalopod -> capitoped chlorophyll -> viridofolia democracy -> populimpery homicide -> anthropoctony homosexual -> equigamic kilometer -> millimensure interregnum -> mesarchy magnanimous -> megapsychic manuscript -> chirography motorcycle -> ergatorote microscope -> parvovisor oxygen -> acidofex polyamory -> multierasty television -> remotoscope universe -> monostrophe

idiopathicsmile

Incidentally, if someone forced me to teach a college course of my choice, it would be about the art of parody. Everyone would have to bring in a work of parody and then we'd discuss what that work captures (or doesn't) about the thing it's riffing on, and whether or not it succeeds. This is partly because I find this topic fascinating, and partly because I am fucking enchanted with the concept that coursework could include "please reflect on this Weird Al song."

galileosballs

Also, please do not listen to how people talk about cover letters on this site. Cover letters are important, and in many industries you can be damn sure they'll be read. And no, they're not 'fanfic about working in your office', or just re-stating the resume contents in a fancier guise. If you treat them like that, then of course they're not doing much for you. That makes you sound like a syncophantic windbag, and it's not doing anything else to help.

I was trained in the dark arts of the cover letter by my mother, who is a hiring manager. And her training has paid off: I've been consistently told my cover letters are excellent. Let me pass on the wisdom.

The job of a cover letter is to give a prospective employer strictly more information than is on the resume. This is where you take the resume contents and put them into context. You look at the job requirements (you are looking at the job requirements before applying, right?) and look at your resume and ask the question (in your head) "why would a person think this candidate would be good for this job?" and your cover letter is the answer to that question. If you don't answer that question, the hiring manager is going to have to do it themselves, and you have way more information to work with than they do.

This is especially important if you're moving from one industry to another, because then the relevant connections aren't obvious. It's also very important if you're overqualified, because then you can use the letter to say "I know it looks like this job would be too entry-level for me, but I'm interested to pursue it for reasons x, y, and z". You can also use this space to explain away something that might otherwise be disqualifying, like job-hopping or a long break in employment. The tone to strike here is always matter-of-fact and constrained to topic - don't go into detail about health stuff or personal tragedy, just tell them what they need to hear: that this period of your resume was affected by [bad thing] but that it's now in the past and you're looking forward to the next chapter. Remember, one of the things they're trying to learn is whether you'd be content in this role, or whether you'd be miserable and leave after 2 months, which would force them to do all the work of hiring again. You're trying to establish that you will fit right in and not cause problems. Knowing what drew you to this job in particular (and don't just say 'money', that's true for everyone) helps with that.

And the other mistake? Everyone writes cover letters that are too long. One page is fine. Two is the absolute maximum, and that's if you have a lot of specific things to say. It's a waste of your time and theirs to pad it out with fluff. Of my two most recent successful cover letters (i.e. jobs for which I was interviewed) one was 390 words and the other was 550. That's the length of this post. How long did it take me to write this post? About 15 minutes to write, 5 to proof and edit. That's how long you should be spending on a cover letter, maximum.