Quick notes about sending job applications

About 90-95% of applicants to job applications I post up elsewhere find my blog somehow and compliment me on it in the opening paragraph of their e-mail. Given this I thought I’d throw some nugget-sized wisdom bombs in front of the eager young eyes of those applicants so they can better their application, or not bother at all.

• If it says full-time please for the love of god don’t apply thinking it’s a freelance position. It just isn’t, ‘full-time’ and ‘freelance’ are two entirely different job types.
• No, you can’t apply for the full-time position, waste an hour of my time talking to me and then say “so here’s the thing… I work with three others guys in…” – stop – your a company already. Next.
• The same goes for ‘White Label’ services. Go away.
• Applying because you like Rolled’s (or my) sense of humour? Show some of your own, it knocks you up the queue significantly. If you are going to talk like a robot, attach a video of you dancing like one to up the comedy level and recover that dreaded generic application from the dead pile.
• Adding to the point above, show some personality. It’s very clear when you are using a template you’ve pre-prepared or slightly editing one.
• Address the actual job, If I say I want x and x from a WordPress Developer, please tell me if you can do any of those x’s. It’s almost the point of the e-mail, the introduction and background paragraph’s are meaningless unless a paragraph addressing the job and your talent to do x and x appears. If you can do x and x extra that’s brilliant, but address the original issues.
• “I’d like £65 an hour and I can work 9-5, I’m just out of University and have done some work for a company in London”. Use some common sense with your rates, especially if you are straight out of University or College with little experience.