How not to apply for a job(37signals.com)
37signals.com
How not to apply for a job
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1088-how-not-to-apply-for-a-job
44 comments
I had to re-read it just to make sure I understood that they're really so anal as to care if people say 37signals vs 37 Signals. Pretty damn pretentious.
They care about attention to detail. They obviously want their job applicants to care too.
I always make a point of checking the preferred spelling of a company or product name when I write about them - probably because I worked at Yahoo! for a year and you really get the importance of that ! hammered in to you (I also have an easily mis-spelled surname).
I always make a point of checking the preferred spelling of a company or product name when I write about them - probably because I worked at Yahoo! for a year and you really get the importance of that ! hammered in to you (I also have an easily mis-spelled surname).
Don't you mean 32_Signals?
I find it difficult to take your position on this. When it comes to how a company's name or product is spelled, there is a right way and there is a wrong way. "37signals" is right. "37 Signals" is wrong. "Flickr" is right. "Flicker" is wrong.
If you get it wrong - on your resume or cover letter no less, those most holy of holies, the most polished job-related documents you own - it shows you to be sloppy. Or not passionate enough to get it right. Or both. Or worse.
When a company is small like this, they want not only the best, but they want the most motivated and most committed to the company. As someone else said, it SHOULD be a mutually benefical relationship, and as they consider that 37signals provides substantial benefit, they are looking for someone who will provide substantial return.
I feel a little like the old guy on the front porch yelling "Get off my lawn!" just now, but any of you decrying this practice clearly don't "get it" and are in no danger of being in a position to be hired by folk like those at 37signals any time soon anyway.
If you get it wrong - on your resume or cover letter no less, those most holy of holies, the most polished job-related documents you own - it shows you to be sloppy. Or not passionate enough to get it right. Or both. Or worse.
When a company is small like this, they want not only the best, but they want the most motivated and most committed to the company. As someone else said, it SHOULD be a mutually benefical relationship, and as they consider that 37signals provides substantial benefit, they are looking for someone who will provide substantial return.
I feel a little like the old guy on the front porch yelling "Get off my lawn!" just now, but any of you decrying this practice clearly don't "get it" and are in no danger of being in a position to be hired by folk like those at 37signals any time soon anyway.
i agree in this day and age where you are supposed to take a second look at people without college degrees and more experience etc.... i bet this eliminates some great people with literally no good reason
If you're hiring a designer, don't you want one that pays an insane amount of attention to detail?
Not useless details like if there's a space in a companies name or not.
I think a designer can be taught to remember how a company likes it's name and product names spelt.
I think a designer can be taught to remember how a company likes it's name and product names spelt.
It's not a useless detail; it's a bit of the company's chosen branding.
You don't want to have to teach that to a designer -- they should just "get it".
I'm sure such nitpicks would knock out some good candidates. It'll also knock out lots of bad candidates. As such, it might still be a good criterion. Only the long-term numbers could tell for sure.
(And by reducing time spent on some hopeless candidates, it could free up more looks at worthwhile candidates. So it's not a simply a matter of "this is unfair to the N good people it eliminates". It may save so much time overall that it allows another M good people, M >> N, to be considered.)
You don't want to have to teach that to a designer -- they should just "get it".
I'm sure such nitpicks would knock out some good candidates. It'll also knock out lots of bad candidates. As such, it might still be a good criterion. Only the long-term numbers could tell for sure.
(And by reducing time spent on some hopeless candidates, it could free up more looks at worthwhile candidates. So it's not a simply a matter of "this is unfair to the N good people it eliminates". It may save so much time overall that it allows another M good people, M >> N, to be considered.)
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From the comments:
Your book is actually copyright “37 Signals, LLC ”. Seems
a bit harsh to dock people on how to type the name if you
guys aren’t 100% consistent with it yourselves.Leaving aside the issue of whether this is a valid point, which has been discussed to death already, what exactly are you getting at? Do you imagine the following scenario?
That means write, read, reread, put it down and do something else to clear your head, come back and read it a third time, and then send. If you used that approach in every moment of every working day, you'd be absurdly unproductive. But if you can't be bothered to do it when it counts, can you really be trusted to act as an agent of the business these guys have poured their lives into building?
Applicant: Pleeze hire me!!!
37signals: You misspelled "please", and used too many bangs. Next.
Applicant: But you used two exclamation points on IRC in May 2006!
37signals: Ah, you caught me. In the interest of fairness, you're hired.
That means write, read, reread, put it down and do something else to clear your head, come back and read it a third time, and then send. If you used that approach in every moment of every working day, you'd be absurdly unproductive. But if you can't be bothered to do it when it counts, can you really be trusted to act as an agent of the business these guys have poured their lives into building?
"37 Signals, LLC" may be the legal name, while the preferred branding is something different. (Their preference is pretty clearly "37signals" on their homepage, much like the lowercasing in "eBay" and even "craigslist".)
A designer should be very sensitive to such presentational choices.
A designer should be very sensitive to such presentational choices.
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This mentality is frequently at odds with how companies find the best candidates.
It presumes that you, the company, have this great and wonderful thing to offer some lucky individual, the candidate. The candidate, gracious for even the opportunity to apply for such a choice offer, spends hours proofreading and otherwise perfect his or her resume and cover letter.
What this ignores is reality. Often the people you want to hire couldn't care less about sending you a resume to prove to you why you are worth their time. They have got better things to do -- and probably a good job that already pays them quite well, thank you very much.
I'm nitpicking a bit here -- obviously it pays to be professional in your communications, no matter what the circumstances. But it's an exceedingly dangerous mentality, particularly for companies operating in our space, where good talent is quite scarce. 37 Signals (oops! I mean "37Signals") can get away with it probably, because they are so well known. Doubtful whether your startup can...
Judge candidates by what they will be doing for you, not by arbitrary weed out criteria like getting your company's product names right.
It presumes that you, the company, have this great and wonderful thing to offer some lucky individual, the candidate. The candidate, gracious for even the opportunity to apply for such a choice offer, spends hours proofreading and otherwise perfect his or her resume and cover letter.
What this ignores is reality. Often the people you want to hire couldn't care less about sending you a resume to prove to you why you are worth their time. They have got better things to do -- and probably a good job that already pays them quite well, thank you very much.
I'm nitpicking a bit here -- obviously it pays to be professional in your communications, no matter what the circumstances. But it's an exceedingly dangerous mentality, particularly for companies operating in our space, where good talent is quite scarce. 37 Signals (oops! I mean "37Signals") can get away with it probably, because they are so well known. Doubtful whether your startup can...
Judge candidates by what they will be doing for you, not by arbitrary weed out criteria like getting your company's product names right.
(oops! I mean "37Signals")
I'm pretty sure you mean "37signals".
I'm pretty sure you mean "37signals".
I'll summarize the article for you (312 words):
when applying for a job, check spelling for the company and its products names. We don't want to be grumpy, but... we are! Kthxbye.
when applying for a job, check spelling for the company and its products names. We don't want to be grumpy, but... we are! Kthxbye.
I'll summarize it further: Let's pick on obscure errors to get this blog posted on as many websites as possible to generate traffic.
From their product blog in May 2008:
"Each of the 37 Signals products comes with a free trial and depending on the size of your organization and project needs, some of the solutions are free. You just have to give them a try."
http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2008/05/4-great-tools-t....
"Each of the 37 Signals products comes with a free trial and depending on the size of your organization and project needs, some of the solutions are free. You just have to give them a try."
http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2008/05/4-great-tools-t....
That's a direct quote from a customer, not their own copy. I think the problem isn't that they want their job applicants to be crazy about details but the fact their company name isn't very easy to spell. They chose unconventional spelling presumably because it looked nice, but people who recall the name are only going to remember the name, not the spelling.
It sounds like they have their attitude wrong. When I apply for a job, it's "why would I want to work for you", not "why should we hire you". They are acting like 37signals is the only place a person would ever want to work, and that they are doing you a favor for hiring you.
Getting hired is not a favor. It's a mutually beneficial business relationship.
Getting hired is not a favor. It's a mutually beneficial business relationship.
It is a favor in the sense that the company is taking the bigger risk. If you turn out to be a bad employee, it is costly to get rid of you, and the costs of finding a replacement are significant. Add to that the lost opportunity cost of being short-staffed and the costs add up.
I'm guessing that 37signals has 10 or so employees. At that stage they can't afford any bad hires.
Considering it's their money and their company that's at stake, I can't blame them for being careful. They're not acting like they're the only place any person would ever want to work, they're acting like they can't make any mistakes. So they have to be extremely careful, and reject everybody who isn't perfect.
I'm guessing that 37signals has 10 or so employees. At that stage they can't afford any bad hires.
Considering it's their money and their company that's at stake, I can't blame them for being careful. They're not acting like they're the only place any person would ever want to work, they're acting like they can't make any mistakes. So they have to be extremely careful, and reject everybody who isn't perfect.
Yeah, but that's not an impossible hiring model. 37signals has built their public face on a "rock star" image among the hacker class. So this is really just part of the schtick.
Certainly, yes, they need to be good to their employees. But part of that means being good to their existing employees, who no doubt have bought into the rock star thing. Whoever gets this position gets to sit in that chair thinking how much better they are than all those idiots mentioned in the blog.
Certainly, yes, they need to be good to their employees. But part of that means being good to their existing employees, who no doubt have bought into the rock star thing. Whoever gets this position gets to sit in that chair thinking how much better they are than all those idiots mentioned in the blog.
Back in the day, by father worked in recruitment for a rather large place that got many many more applicants per jobs (like most places I guess, but this one would employ several 100 new people per year with thousands of applications per recruitment round).
He told me they used spelling mistakes to filter applicants - more than X (cannot remember what X was) typos in the form and you were cut - harsh, but somewhat fair at the same time. Yes they probably lost some good people, but probably many more bad ones - all recruitment is like that, there is always someone who should have gotten in that doesn't unfortunately.
He was not recruiting IT or even degree level folk either ...
He told me they used spelling mistakes to filter applicants - more than X (cannot remember what X was) typos in the form and you were cut - harsh, but somewhat fair at the same time. Yes they probably lost some good people, but probably many more bad ones - all recruitment is like that, there is always someone who should have gotten in that doesn't unfortunately.
He was not recruiting IT or even degree level folk either ...
Am I the only one who is kinda bugged that everyone is getting hung up on the "37signals vs. 37 Signals" debate, both in HN's comments, and SvN's comments?
Look - that wasn't the point of the article! IMHO, the point of the article was to do some research, try your best, and not come across as shoddy. As a former hiring manager, I can attest to the sometimes shocking lack of attention to detail people have when applying for a job. You are sometimes competing against literally hundreds of other applicants, and people reviewing the resumes don't have a lot to go on. Just make sure you try your hardest and do your best if you want to be considered for the position.
And I didn't come away with the feeling that 37s would exclude someone ONLY BECAUSE they put a space between 37 and signals. But they do count it as a negative mark when reviewing a pile of 80 applications.
If there are 10 interview slots, and you and one other applicant have identical resumes and are competing for that 10th slot, and it's down to you and that other applicant, the spelling of the company name just might matter.
Of course, everyone here is an entrepreneur and not really applying to corporate jobs anyway, right? ;)
Look - that wasn't the point of the article! IMHO, the point of the article was to do some research, try your best, and not come across as shoddy. As a former hiring manager, I can attest to the sometimes shocking lack of attention to detail people have when applying for a job. You are sometimes competing against literally hundreds of other applicants, and people reviewing the resumes don't have a lot to go on. Just make sure you try your hardest and do your best if you want to be considered for the position.
And I didn't come away with the feeling that 37s would exclude someone ONLY BECAUSE they put a space between 37 and signals. But they do count it as a negative mark when reviewing a pile of 80 applications.
If there are 10 interview slots, and you and one other applicant have identical resumes and are competing for that 10th slot, and it's down to you and that other applicant, the spelling of the company name just might matter.
Of course, everyone here is an entrepreneur and not really applying to corporate jobs anyway, right? ;)
This seems to be about the only reasonable comment on this page, and yet the ones that are getting upvoted are the ones that are making excuses for mediocrity and criticizing 37signals for using attention to detail as a hiring criterion. (I can't upvote yours -- I lost my vote months ago when I downvoted all 20 or 30 copies of a multiply-posted comment, which the system interpreted as karma-bombing.)
I hadn't believed news.yc was really headed downhill until I saw the comments here. If "details don't matter" is really the winning view, lolcats and "we'll do it live" post chains are probably not too far behind.
(Edit: I just noticed the reason the parent comment is being ignored is more than likely just a timing issue.)
I hadn't believed news.yc was really headed downhill until I saw the comments here. If "details don't matter" is really the winning view, lolcats and "we'll do it live" post chains are probably not too far behind.
(Edit: I just noticed the reason the parent comment is being ignored is more than likely just a timing issue.)
slightly pompous. Most hackers probably don't use word or have spell check handy. (I use VI or Textpad). When I send a resume, it is usually a simple.txt file, and I noticed I had a misspelling.
I went and did a spellcheck online, and noticed two errors, or recent edits. I fixed them, but I already sent it somewhere. If the company doesn't want to consider me b/c of these two minor errors, then it is their loss.
I went and did a spellcheck online, and noticed two errors, or recent edits. I fixed them, but I already sent it somewhere. If the company doesn't want to consider me b/c of these two minor errors, then it is their loss.
> Most hackers probably don't use word or have spell check handy. (I use VI or Textpad).
$ man ispellWhen you're considering somebody for a position you want to make sure they fit in well. And if everybody at the company has an eye for detail, and habitually spellchecks all internal and external communication then you wouldn't fit in. After all, if people don't spellcheck their resumé they're definitely not going to spellcheck casual emails.
Also you have to give the impression that you really want the job. Hiring costs a lot of money, so if they think you might jump ship after 6 months, you're no hire. Sloppy writing and no personalized letter indicate that you don't care for the job or don't really need it.
Add the risk of the false positive (money and hassle) to the equitation and you become a clear no-hire.
Also you have to give the impression that you really want the job. Hiring costs a lot of money, so if they think you might jump ship after 6 months, you're no hire. Sloppy writing and no personalized letter indicate that you don't care for the job or don't really need it.
Add the risk of the false positive (money and hassle) to the equitation and you become a clear no-hire.
I still don't get it how spelling error = bad hire. I probably might have small gramatical lapses, but that doesn't make me a bad engineer.
Keep in mind that not everybody knows English natively. I was born in a different country, and know three other languages, and it is common to say a word, and the real meaning is something different from what I think it is.
I always spell behaviour, with the U, and word always get is a misspelling, which obviously is not.
As I said, I hope a that a future employer is able to look past superficialities, and get to the core if I am a good engineer, and fit for their culture.
At my previous Coorporate Job (big finance company), everybody had to dress well (collared Shirts all the time), and your resume had to look good, be formated right, yet the engineers that worked there were two notches down, both in quality and quantity of the work, from the current company where I work now, where everybody dresses casually, people have less formalities and have the "Less b.s. and let's get things done" attitude.
Obviously people that care about "looks", and appearances, would not be comfortable at this place.
Plus, at work I have both word, and Automatic spellcheck on emails. Yet gramatical errors are almost inevitable for a foreign born, still this doesn't make me a lesser engineer, or a lesser hacker.
Keep in mind that not everybody knows English natively. I was born in a different country, and know three other languages, and it is common to say a word, and the real meaning is something different from what I think it is.
I always spell behaviour, with the U, and word always get is a misspelling, which obviously is not.
As I said, I hope a that a future employer is able to look past superficialities, and get to the core if I am a good engineer, and fit for their culture.
At my previous Coorporate Job (big finance company), everybody had to dress well (collared Shirts all the time), and your resume had to look good, be formated right, yet the engineers that worked there were two notches down, both in quality and quantity of the work, from the current company where I work now, where everybody dresses casually, people have less formalities and have the "Less b.s. and let's get things done" attitude.
Obviously people that care about "looks", and appearances, would not be comfortable at this place.
Plus, at work I have both word, and Automatic spellcheck on emails. Yet gramatical errors are almost inevitable for a foreign born, still this doesn't make me a lesser engineer, or a lesser hacker.
A spelling error can be a superficiality, but it can also be a symptom of an underlying problem: sloppy thinking.
And sloppy thinkers generally make for for poor programmers, because they keep making the same trivial mistakes, keep breaking the build, and so forth.
There are, of course, many people who are careful programmers but sloppy writers. The question is, should the company take that risk? A large company probably can afford to take that risk, smaller companies probably can't.
And if programmers make spelling mistakes in function/variable names, then yes, I'm afraid that makes them lesser engineers.
And sloppy thinkers generally make for for poor programmers, because they keep making the same trivial mistakes, keep breaking the build, and so forth.
There are, of course, many people who are careful programmers but sloppy writers. The question is, should the company take that risk? A large company probably can afford to take that risk, smaller companies probably can't.
And if programmers make spelling mistakes in function/variable names, then yes, I'm afraid that makes them lesser engineers.
M-x flyspell-mode
Get yourself a real editor, kid.
Get yourself a real editor, kid.
Nope, doesn't work. Use this instead:
:set spell spelllang=en_us
:set spell spelllang=en_us
Uh... it was an emacs vs. vi joke. I know (or rather, am completely unsurprised) that vim can do dynamic spell checking too. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if textpad could do it too.
I thought you claimed (incorrectly) that vim and textmate don't have spellchecking. Why else would it be relevant that emacs has spellchecking?
Hackers are generally smart people. Smart people know to learn a bit about the company they're applying to BEFORE they apply.
"It presumes that you, the company, have this great and wonderful thing to offer some lucky individual, the candidate."
No it doesn't.
We're just asking you to spell or name, our product names, and everything else right. That's not a tall order, it's basic writing etiquette. This is your job application. It's your first impression. Spelling is important.
If you can't get that right, or don't notice that it's wrong, then I don't think you are paying attention to the kind of details that we think are important. Spelling, writing, paying attention to spaces, characters, letters -- those things are important to us.
It's not pretentious of an employer to expect someone to check their spelling -- especially the spelling of the company name. That's a basic writing skill. If you are applying for a job you better believe it matters to the employer. Ignore that advice at your own risk.
No it doesn't.
We're just asking you to spell or name, our product names, and everything else right. That's not a tall order, it's basic writing etiquette. This is your job application. It's your first impression. Spelling is important.
If you can't get that right, or don't notice that it's wrong, then I don't think you are paying attention to the kind of details that we think are important. Spelling, writing, paying attention to spaces, characters, letters -- those things are important to us.
It's not pretentious of an employer to expect someone to check their spelling -- especially the spelling of the company name. That's a basic writing skill. If you are applying for a job you better believe it matters to the employer. Ignore that advice at your own risk.
Then how do you explain your (as in 37signal's) own lapses?
Never mind - I just noticed your reply on 37signals.com to someone else, which I felt was a bit of a cop-out given the emphasis you placed on the company name. If it was that important, I would have thought you would get it right on things like your incorporated company name or public blog.
JF 16 Jun 08
Ben, we’re all about making mistakes. We make them all the time. But making a spelling mistake on a job application is the one place you shouldn’t be making a spelling mistake. And I can promise you this opinion isn’t unique to 37signals, we’ve just chosen to talk about it publicly.
We will likely be sharing part of the designer hiring process once we’ve successfully hired someone. It wouldn’t make sense to share a resume with someone we’re considering if we haven’t hired them yet. Someone could lose their current job that way. Or we might be setting unfair expectations for someone.
JF 16 Jun 08
Ben, we’re all about making mistakes. We make them all the time. But making a spelling mistake on a job application is the one place you shouldn’t be making a spelling mistake. And I can promise you this opinion isn’t unique to 37signals, we’ve just chosen to talk about it publicly.
We will likely be sharing part of the designer hiring process once we’ve successfully hired someone. It wouldn’t make sense to share a resume with someone we’re considering if we haven’t hired them yet. Someone could lose their current job that way. Or we might be setting unfair expectations for someone.
This bothers me simply because there may be layers of indirection between the candidate's hand and your eyes. If, for instance, they dictated that part of the application, the person taking the information down may not have taken the same care the applicant would have. There might have been a "grammar correction" pass in their email client that they had set to automatic instead of interactive. That's just two things, but if there are any there are probably more I'm not thinking of.
Yeah to be honest I sort of feel sorry for whoever gets the job.
If the job were public relations or something, this would be understandable to me. But I've known many people who were extremely competent in a field, but didn't really care about things that didn't interest them (such as job applications). You should look at these people's portfolios, not dismiss them over some assumption about how their trivial spelling errors speak to their inner character.
If these job applicants have a responsibility to be professional in their presentation of their skills, why don't you have a responsibility to be professional in your appraisal of their applications? These are completely petty reasons to drop a resume, akin to "they showed up at the interview without a tie."
If these job applicants have a responsibility to be professional in their presentation of their skills, why don't you have a responsibility to be professional in your appraisal of their applications? These are completely petty reasons to drop a resume, akin to "they showed up at the interview without a tie."
Attention to detail is important.
37 signals are getting a little bit arrogant...just, just a little bit.
I find this pedantic in the extreme. It’s not the applicant’s fault that the company struggles with standard English. They can choose their employees as they like, but this doesn't seem to be in their own best interest. Harshly judging and then publicly chastising applicants who might be trying to make their cover letter grammatically correct might provide a temporary ego boost, but it does little to help the business.