Don't write to the personnel department. This is not to undermine the importance of this department; it plays a vital role in the successful functioning of an organization. When it comes to hiring, however, the final decision is almost always made by an applicant's prospective manager. As in any other endeavor, it's advantageous to deal directly with the ultimate decision-maker.
The Broadcast Letter
Of the major job-search strategies, sending companies a broadcast letter gives you the most exposure in the quickest manner.
The broadcast letter also provides four key advantages: First, it affords the opportunity to develop an interview with any company of your choice. Second, it enables you quickly and efficiently to contact any number of potential employers. Third, it allows you to tailor your background to fit the requirements of the position you're seeking. Fourth, it enables you to present only the information that will interest a company in hiring you. You can omit all information on which you might be screened out.
The broadcast letter should therefore be one of the first strategies you consider when you don't have personal contacts to arrange interviews with companies you're interested in. Although this letter lacks the credibility that a personal referral provides, it compensates for this by the speed with which it enables you to put your background and qualification in front of any number of potential employers.
Even if you don't decide to use this method for generating interviews, you should still be knowledgeable about how it works. The broadcast letter is the cornerstone for presenting experience in letter form, and some of the other strategies you'll want to utilize will require a written summary of your background.
If your background consists of administrative or support-type positions that don't lend themselves to visible accomplishments, list your major responsibilities. Wherever possible, use numbers to convey their scope. For example, state how many people or forms you processed each day, the dollar volume of the project you worked on, or the size of the facility, department, or company you worked at.
Many managers have preferences regarding the types of people they hire, and this is the kind of data on which you can be screened out, even though you have the required technical experience. For example, a manager might feel that you have been earning too much or too little money. He could consider you to be too young or too old, or to have too much or not enough experience. He might not respect the companies you have worked for or the college you attended. He might not like to hire people from large companies or from small ones. He could see you as a job-hopper, or believe that because you've worked for one organization for so many years it would be difficult to adjust to another. He might question periods of unemployment or the fact that you currently aren't working.
To prevent being denied interviews for any of these reasons, omit this kind of information. Only provide data that will demonstrate your qualifications. No one can argue with accomplishments and success! If a manager is interested in the details of your background, he can find out about them by interviewing you.
Granted, once a manager meets you, he will learn about these details. However, you may not fit his stereotyped image and you likely won't be precluded from getting an offer. If a manager had this information in advance, he might never have arranged the interview.
If there's an aspect of your background that you believe all managers will regard favorably, include it. For example, if you attended a highly respected college, state its name. If you have worked for prestigious companies, give their names.
If you're interested in a specific position or want to work in a particular industry, offer the kind of information that will enhance your qualifications for this objective. Likewise, if there's an aspect of your background that might be regarded unfavorably, omit it. Notice that Jack didn't write anything about the size of his employers or his sales volume. Since all his employers were small companies and his objective was to join a large organization, he didn't want to offer any information that might diminish the impact of his accomplishments. For example, he stated that he increased sales by 75%, not by $750,000. The latter wouldn't have been that impressive to an international chemicals company with annual sales in the billions of dollars.
In the event that you're an executive with an entrepreneurial bent and would like to join a company and put it into a new business, add a paragraph in which you suggest such a venture. While your accomplishments might prompt a reader to consider this himself, making the actual proposal will never hurt. Furnish a brief plan in which you cite the required capital, equipment, and personnel, plus projections for revenues and profits.
When composing the broadcast letter, try to keep the length to one page, although two are permissible. Also, don't attempt to write the letter in one sitting. You'll do the best work if you com pose the document over a period of days. The letter won't sound the same to you in the morning as it did the night before. Always check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
At this point, you're undoubtedly wondering why you should go to the trouble of writing this letter and not just send companies your resume. Doing so would be a mistake. A broadcast letter will always produce more interviews. There are several reasons why.
Most important, a broadcast letter will be read by the manager to whom you send it. This is less frequently the case with a resume. Many managers ask their secretaries to screen their mail and automatically route resumes to the personnel department. Since reading these documents is a time-consuming task—they prefer that a personnel representative conduct the initial evaluation—your broadcast letter won't be sent to personnel. Because you will mark the envelope "Personal & Confidential," most secretaries won't open it. They'll promptly give it to their boss. In the event that a manager has asked his secretary to open personal mail, he will still receive your correspondence. It's a letter and not a resume. There's no reason to send it to personnel.
When the manager sees your letter, he won't forward it to personnel either. First of all, virtually everyone reads mail marked "Personal & Confidential." Second, your opening sentence states an outstanding accomplishment in the manager's field. This arouses his curiosity and prompts him to read on.
Reasons Why a Broadcast Letter Is More Successful Than a Resume:
You Can't Be Screened Out
When a manager has an opening for which you have the right experience, you can't be denied interviews because of hiring preferences. A broadcast letter doesn't contain the kind of information that allows this to happen; a resume does. If you were to omit these items from your resume, their absence would be conspicuous. A manager could become suspicious that you were trying to conceal something unfavorable about your background and reject you.
Since your broadcast letter is a personal document, you have the freedom to say and/or leave out anything you want without ever arousing suspicion. You aren't bound by any traditionally followed practices, as you are in resume-writing, where certain information is always included.
You Can Be Interviewed for Multiple Positions
Since a broadcast letter doesn't state a formal job objective, a manager can interview you for any position for which you're qualified. A resume doesn't afford this luxury. No matter how skillfully you word your objective, you can still lose out on interviews. If you omit an objective from your resume, many readers will assume that you have no career direction and are after any job you can get.
Not only will a broadcast letter produce more interviews than a resume, but these meetings can occur with no competition from other job-seekers. You'll penetrate the hidden job market and gain access to the 80% of the openings that aren't being actively pursued by other job-hunters. In addition, you'll contact managers who will want to meet you with the objective of creating a position for you or hiring you today instead of hiring someone else with your back ground at a future time.
