Kid Sends Blunt Cover Letter and Now People are Trying to Hire Him
finance.yahoo.com
Kid Sends Blunt Cover Letter and Now People are Trying to Hire Him
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Re: Kid Sends Blunt Cover Letter and Now People are Trying to Hire Him
#2Well, he has demonstrated: Integrity , reasonably strong written skills , some balls and of course "thinking outside the box".
Re: Kid Sends Blunt Cover Letter and Now People are Trying to Hire Him
#3>I wouldn't be surprised if this guy gets at least a call from every bank out there
I think that's funny. My brother works in finance, and I work in engineering. We both interview candidates and we were discussing our approaches recently. What struck us is how different our approaches are. A few key differences:
* In general, his approach is based more on intuition, whereas mine is very objective. We both spend a lot of effort determining 'fit', but my technical requirements are far more specific.
* Education matters a lot more to my brother. He has HR throw out resumes that aren't from an ivy or aren't from a top 7 business school. I filter far less aggressively, somewhere around the top 50-100 school mark. We both filter on GPA about the same.
* He likes it when people put their extracurricular activities on their resume, for me it can't help you but could be a negative.
Basically, my brother wants smart, hard-working, interesting people. I want someone who does a high quality job, doesn't need hand-holding to get up to speed, and is not a jerk to other people in the company. The guy's cover letter wouldn't impress me much, but my brother would probably love it.
Re: Kid Sends Blunt Cover Letter and Now People are Trying to Hire Him
#4It's funny to think that more people don't use this strategy.
He starts with some sort of connection to the email recipient, says how he's willing to do anything, discredits the peacocking majority (and then peacocks himself), etc.
This is the same thought process used in sales and marketing and even pickup.
Re: Kid Sends Blunt Cover Letter and Now People are Trying to Hire Him
#5Honnesty pays. What else to say - this kids has more than most people.
Re: Kid Sends Blunt Cover Letter and Now People are Trying to Hire Him
#6>I wouldn't be surprised if this guy gets at least a call from every bank out there I think that's funny. My brother works in finance, and I work in engineering. We both interview candidates and we were discussing our approaches recently. What struck us is how different our approaches are. A few key differences: * In general, his approach is based more on intuition, whereas mine is very objective. We both spend a lot…
I'm interested in what you say about extracurricular activities. I can certainly agree that in most cases they are a waste of space "I like music, movies and videogames".
Surely though there would be some extracurriculars that might impress you? Contributions to a high profile open source projects , doing something that requires good organisation/people skills or just something that might tell you a bit about the person's personality?
What sort of extracurriculars would you consider to be negative?
Re: Kid Sends Blunt Cover Letter and Now People are Trying to Hire Him
#7[deleted]
Re: Kid Sends Blunt Cover Letter and Now People are Trying to Hire Him
#8I am not surprised that a cover letter full of humility and honest self-appraisal has shocked Wall Street HR teams to the point of becoming a featured article on Yahoo.
Re: Kid Sends Blunt Cover Letter and Now People are Trying to Hire Him
#9Wait a second... this guy sent a letter to a firm looking for employment and had it along with his personal details paraded around - what looks to be - the industry?
How is that not a serious violation of privacy? I'm pretty sure this would violate even the most basic privacy statement. I highly doubt they asked the submitter if they would enjoy being emailed to the industry. In Canada or the EU you'd be violating Government legislation too.
Hope it works out for him, but this just goes to show how little Wall Street thinks of people outside of their own circle. If I were a high up in Morgan Stanley (it's the only company name not blacked out) I'd be pissed.
Re: Kid Sends Blunt Cover Letter and Now People are Trying to Hire Him
#10This isn't a good resume because it's blunt, it's good because he describes himself as basically exactly what you would want in an intern.
"I'm looking to pad out my resume for a few months until my dad can score me a cushy job at his firm" is also an honest, blunt thing to say in a cover letter... but I doubt it works as well.