By: <a href='http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrosimoes7/4672744652/' target='_blank'>Pedro Ribeiro Simões</a> - <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC BY 2.0</a>

If this arrived in your inbox in response to a ‘job’ ad, how would you respond – if you even bothered to?

Hi

I’m Mike and I was exploring the interwebs and found a job you posted on [oops] – which sucks because it doesn’t say when you posted the job – so I don’t know whether you still have the need.

Anyway, I’d like to talk to a real life human about what you need and how I might help. From your ad, you say ‘CTO’ and I hear ‘partner to change how the passionate people find passionate work…and who can code’ – and that excites me.

I don’t generally do CVs. But you can check me out at
twitter: @mhsutton
linkedIn: http://es.linkedin.com/in/mikesutton/
my blog: http://mhsutton.me

Over the last 20 years as a maker of things, I’ve…
… led the building of this: Some cool site (and [another cool app])
… helped rescue and scale this: [Awesome service]
… (and oh yeah, I used to build defence software too – so hush hush).

Right now, I’m building this: [Something I’m working on now]
and I recently mothballed this: [something I used to work on]

When I’m not doing this: [My current thing]
I dabble on these: [a dabble] and [another dabble] (it’s a little slow – there’s a lot of data crunching going on).

I’ve made things with many languages – some which are technically extinct now. But I currently mostly play with web things and craft in Ruby, Node.js. Though I use what I need to make what I want.

I play nicely with others and help others do the same.

If this sounds like something you want to hear more about – then lets get a conversation started and you can tell your story, I can tell you mine and we can explore how we might tell a new story. I’m free anytime next week to explore.

ps. If I hear nothing by Monday, I’ll assume any/all of the following
a) you’re too busy to care
b) totally uninterested in our future awesomeness
c) or battling a tummy bug so bad you can’t type a reply.
… In any case, I’ll thank you for reading, wish you well and move on. No worries.

Thanks
Mike


I have recently been experimenting with self-selective content that is designed to appeal to exactly the kind of people I want to work and collaborate with.
Would be interested in whether you think this does that.

Thanks for reading.


Featured Image By: Pedro Ribeiro SimõesCC BY 2.0

4 thoughts on “Pretend you didn't know me, how would you respond?”
  1. To be brutally honest, I would probably dump such an email in the trash. The tone just rubs me the wrong way. But then that might be because I’m Dutch and we tend to dislike people who brag. And this came across as somebody thumping their chest.

    Fortunately, I’m not somebody who hires people, so I hope actual recruiters will love your letter! Good luck with finding a format that works for you!

  2. The best way to immediately have a recruiter respond to your application is to write something like this:

    Greetings!

    JavaScript, Node.js, jQuery, Backbone, Angular, Ruby on Rails, Django, Twisted, Java, Hibernate, Spring, Scala, MongoDB, NoSQL, CouchDB, Postgres, MySQL, Cloud, HTML5, CSS3.

    * Will Work for Cola

    * Will Work Long Hours

    * Will accept far less salary than I’m worth because I *believe* in you.

    * Will attend social gatherings outside of working hours with co-workers, pretending that I like them, just so that I can feel I’m not a social outcast while actually *at* work.

    * Will use *Your* shrink-wrapped methodologies in place of techniques I’ve developed that also work.

    * Will adopt the political belief system of the corporation, even though technically corporations shouldn’t have belief systems.

    When can I expect my interview?

    Thank you,

    1. Listen you!

      This is a serious discussion and you are not helping.

      And besides I ain’t adopting political beliefs for nobody.

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