Resumes and Job Postings

My company is hiring a web developer for a one month contract . I got involved because I'm the main only server side programmer here. I wrote that posting and threw it on Craig's List and waited for the resumes to come in.

All in all I got about 25 of them, which isn't bad considering it cost us nothing to post it, but it's a far cry from the hundreds we used to get from Monster.com back at my previous job.

I'm amazed at how lazy people are at applying for jobs. The internet has made it so easy to send a resume that people just blast them out to dozens of postings every day, I think without even reading them.

Case in point: In my posting I asked people to send their resumes in PDF or text format. Although I have word at the office I don't at home, plus I'm paranoid about scripting viruses and things like that.

Guess how many of the applicants listened to that simple instruction? 2! The other 23 just attached word files. I also asked for a portfolio of sites that I could look at, and only half did that.

Here's a hint for people who are applying to jobs: It will really impress the person wading through the list of applicants if you listen to their instructions, write them a cover letter that shows that you've looked at their company web site and think you're a good fit. You'll get a double star if you customize your resume to highlight the particular skills the posting is looking for.

The other funny thing that happened was that two completely different people sent me the exact same portfolio. And when I say exact same, I mean the formatting, style, comments were all identical.

I emailed them both back and asked them which one actually did the work. I got a reply that said that they work together in the same office and they worked on both, despite having completely different email addresses and company names. It also asked if they could come in for an interview.

I replied with the following:

I understand that projects are often done in groups, but there's an assumption in a portfolio that unless you indicate that you did it with others that you did all the work yourself. Otherwise, as an employer how am I supposed to judge your skill level? This strikes me as dishonest.

Sorry, but I'm not interested in your services.