After clicking on the “Respond” button, a special document is created, a response that contains brief information about the applicant from the resume: last place of work, position, date of birth, salary expectations, etc., as well as transmittal letter.
The employer sees all the responses on the Job Seekers page:
Each response has a link to a cover letter. If the employer is interested in the application, he can either click on it to read the cover letter, or on the resume title to go directly to the resume.
At each of these stages of reviewing the response, the employer can click on the "Invite" or "Reject" button, and the applicant will receive a corresponding notification. If the employer viewed the page with the resume and/or cover letter, but did not send an invitation or refusal, then such a response will have the status "Under consideration".
There can be several response statuses in total:
- Response delivered (Response is with the employer, but not yet viewed)
- Under consideration (The response has been reviewed by the employer, but so far the employer has not sent either an invitation or a refusal)
- Invitation (The employer invited you to a vacancy)
- Refusal (The employer decided to invite not you to the vacancy).
All your responses can be seen in the "Summary" - "Responses and Invitations" section, and select the "All responses" tab.
When inviting a job seeker to a vacancy, the employer can also write a personal message. New messages from the employer will be indicated by a marker on the "My responses" page. Read more about correspondence with an employer.
If the employer does not make a decision before the end of the vacancy placement period, then at the moment when it is transferred to the archive, all applicants who responded will receive a notification that the vacancy is no longer relevant. All correspondence related to this vacancy will also be archived.
If you are not yet registered on www.hh.ru, or have not authorized in personal account, when you click on the "Respond" button, you will see a page where you will either need to enter your username and password, or register by entering your Last Name, First Name, email or phone number.
The concept of "cover letter" has recently entered everyday life in connection with the development of Internet technologies. Usually these are short letters that accompany the main document and contain Additional information for the recipient. Under the guidance of an experienced HR manager, we figured out what rules for such letters exist in the business environment.
Cover letters are read before the analysis of the resume itself, so they play a major role in the interpretation and perception of subsequent information. The letter must certainly be composed correctly, then it will win over the reader and distract from critical perception. A bad letter is a reason to throw even a perfect resume in the trash: 36% of HR managers admitted that they turned down candidates because of incorrect cover letters.
The practice of writing cover letters is more common among senior and middle managers. In these positions, the letter requires a fundamentally different quality of execution. Let's look at the main features of successful cover letters.
Strict structure
The cover letter contains:
- Greetings(“Dear [name/position]”, “[Name], good afternoon”, “Dear”)
The greeting should either be personalized or refer to a specific department if the name of the recipient is not known.
- main part
2.1. tell what position you are applying for if you send a resume to work mail to the employer. You do not need to do this on the site;
2.2. Explain what attracted you to this job: an interesting product, new features or complex tasks;
2.3. smoothly move from motivation to experience and a list of projects that are not described in the resume, but are useful for this vacancy;
2.4. remind again of your motivation for the position. The further the content of paragraph 2.3 is from the required experience, the more necessary paragraph 2.4. - Parting(“Best regards”, “Respectfully”) and duplicated contact details
It is important to remember that all points except 2.3 are tried and tested clichés created by successful candidates for years of practice. They are standard, obvious, are already etiquette when communicating through cover letters, should not exceed one or two sentences and are written strictly from a new indented paragraph.
Let's take an example from a letter from the head of the sales department of a large western FMCG company. It is quite long, but leadership position this is perfectly acceptable.
"Irina, good afternoon,
I am writing to you regarding the vacancy "Head of Channel Sales modern trade».
The described duties and purposes of this position seem to me extremely interesting. I have always been attracted to complex and ambitious projects.
I want to immediately note that the experience of working with household appliances I don't, but unlike most candidates I have the following strengths:
- Work experience with federal networks at the level of the first persons for more than 5 years;
- successful launch and introduction of new products in highly competitive categories (dairy products).
My professional experience also includes:
- command management sales representatives and supervisors from 30 people;
- closing accounts receivable for key customers.
In case of mutual interest, I suggest calling at any time convenient for you.
Sincerely,
Alexey Kh,
Tel.»
Although in most cases the name of the recipient is not known, it is very important to observe personalized and thoughtful treatment. Remember that a copied template cover letter will most likely leave your resume unread. Possible inquiries to the site can be: "Dear Company X Human Resources", "Dear Company X Recruiting", "Dear X Company Recruiting Manager", "I have carefully studied the position of Modern Commerce Channel Sales Manager, etc. ."
Small but capacious
Remember that the cover letter should be read in 10 seconds. Unfortunately, frequent practice Russian culture is to write in the cover letter absolutely all projects and life experiences that are not at all related to the vacancy. Such letters reveal a total misunderstanding of both the position and its role in the company.
Try to write a small but informative and useful letter with only quality information.
business style
The style of the cover letter should be consistent with the company's industry and corporate culture.
For most engineering, medical, banking, consulting and other employers, an aged business style described above. It is a win-win for 95% of vacancies posted on the Internet. It is distinguished by the most easy and informative form of writing: a simple structure, terminology, the absence of cumbersome subordinate and complex sentences.
The remaining 5% are Hi-tech, creative, IT start-up, private and small companies with niche products - allow for a freer and more emotional appeal.
Mistakes
A common mistake that instantly kills the interest of the reader - template letters. If for you this application for participation in the competition for a position is so typical that you copy your letter, then for the recipient you become an equally typical candidate.
Do not duplicate your experience in a cover letter in other words.. No one wants to spend extra time reading the same information twice.
Creativity in writing and humor only relevant if the company in question is among the small percentage of employers for whom originality and humor are part of the professional activity and consistent with the internal corporate culture.
So what's the secret to great cover letters? They are structured, small in volume, but extremely capacious, stylized for the company's culture and do not contain errors. And most importantly, such cover letters focus on the interests of the company, and not on the personal interest of the candidate. Show that you know what the company needs and how to help.
We tell you how to respond to vacancies and job advertisements for copywriters. it step-by-step instruction- we will look at how to talk about yourself, show examples of work, ask questions and call for cooperation.
Response Structure
In order to tell about yourself clearly and interestingly, you need to build a structure. If you grab at first for one, and then for another, porridge will come out. Instead, it is better to write on the "skeleton".
The response consists of:
- greetings
- Telling about yourself
- Work examples
- Additional items (depending on the specific vacancy)
- endings
Greetings
Any employer needs a normal conversation in their language, so don't be rude and write "Hello". If you know each other and know that a person likes to communicate on “you”, you can write “Hi”. If you immediately go to excessive familiarity, this can alienate the customer.
I don’t work with a person if an instant transition to “you” and familiarity begins.
Yaroslav Trofimova
editor
Exception. If the vacancies are written in the old Russian, deliberately “boyish” or “Yoda-master” manner of speech, as in the image, you can write a response in a similar style. But then keep the whole letter in it.
Story about yourself
It's hard to talk about yourself because different situations need a different story. But there are two universal rules.
- Tell about important things to the interlocutor
- Speak to the point
How to talk about yourself and not screw up
There are already many Ilyakhovs about this in their blog. In order not to tire, we give a squeeze.
First, just say who you are: a teacher, a programmer, a commercial writer, a copywriter for landing pages. This forms an image in the head of the employer. A teacher teaches, a programmer writes code, a commercial author writes text for money.
After it is appropriate to mention the experience, if it can somehow help the customer. If you organized a team of copywriters and personally taught them some tricks, and now you are applying for the vacancy of editor-in-chief, tell us about this experience. If they are looking for the author of texts for landing pages, it is better to talk about landing pages, and not about organizing and training copywriters.
How to speak to the point
Above, we have already said that you need to write in the world of the employer. Employer doesn't care how well you did your bookkeeping big company if he is looking for an author for a sports blog. But if you are going to write for Tinkoff-Journal or another project about finance, it’s better to tell us about the value of your experience.
Everything you write about should be for the benefit of the project. Ask yourself the question: “What will the customer get from this?”. If you get something good - enter the answer in the accompanying one. If you don't get it, delete it.
Tell the client about your competence in his field.
Work examples
This doesn't mean you have to throw out a bunch of links. Make 2-4 links and sign them. The signature should be such that the essence is clear without clicking on the links. Links in this case are an element of evidence, not a thing that must be clicked on.
It is not necessary to provide a list of references. If you have a case for a whole project and you can give it out, write a story:
I promoted the Fitness Food company. For six months I supervised four people: we wrote articles for the blog, completely filled the site and maintained social networks. During this time, the company's turnover increased by 1.5 times and it opened an office in St. Petersburg (before that it was only in Moscow). To do this, he also worked with the sales department - received records, instructed employees. I followed calls so that there were no “downtimes” when a client calls and they don’t pick up the phone.
Additional items
An employer can write in the vacancy "be sure to indicate your age." Why he does this is not clear. But in a situation with strange requests, the rule applies:
If the employer indicated something in the vacancy, he needs it.
Many job seekers do not read what the job posting says. I asked for a link to the texts in the Google doc specifically on the financial topic. Some authors wrote a sheet about themselves without references. Others - threw a link to their portfolio, where I had to look for texts about banks.
Marie Makeeva
editor
Every request has a reason. If the customer asks a question or asks for a certain format in the resume, it is better to fulfill this request. So you demonstrate your attentiveness and make life easier for the future employer.
Your questions
When you apply for vacancies, you will have questions on some points.
Here the employer writes in the requirements "knowledge of HTML". You can fill in the text on the made-up page, but you are tormented to make the page itself. Is this enough or not? Or "knowledge of the basics of search engine optimization." What is considered "basics"? How do you know if you're at the right level? Ask the employer. Tell what confused you, describe the situation, and get a clear answer.
Ask questions firmly, but be polite. You help clients, not torture them.
“Pyotr Alekseevich, now about the controversial points. I saw that you require knowledge of HTML, and I'm not sure I have the right level. I can “fill in” the text on the page, but it will be difficult to make up the page itself. Tell me, please, will this knowledge be enough, or do you need a more competent worker in this matter?”
Take care of people and they will be drawn to you.
Letter ending
In order not to seem like you are cutting everything off in mid-sentence, you need to finish the letter somehow. The best option Give the employer a call to action. And so that the call does not seem like a push and a plea "take me to work", explain why you are doing this action.
Even better, propose an action leading to an attempt at cooperation. Offer a small work task on a small budget. Even if nothing works out, you will not be sorry, and the employer will not want to close it at the cost of twenty iterations.
Good overall response
Now, in order to fit all the techniques described above into one response and show how it should look, we will give an example of a vacancy and a good response to it.
There is a vacancy:
“Urgently looking for a nutrition writer to write 1 article per week for the FitnessLive blog.
Requirements:
Literacy, Knowledge of dietetics in practice, Ability to write in an informational style (not to knock out a Glavred grade, but write in an infostyle, this is important), A portfolio of at least two worthy articles
Now the fixed payment for articles is 5000 rubles. For registration we will attract designers, you also do not have to make up anything. Later we will develop other formats, but we will talk about this individually later.”
A good response might look like this:
"Hello. My name is Natalia Ivanova, I am an author of articles and a future nutritionist.
I know dietology both in theory and in practice. Now I am preparing to enter the Lomonosov Moscow State University as a nutritionist. Practice knowledge from your own experience in trying to lose weight. At the age of 14, I lost 10 kilograms thanks to the right diet, so I can talk about the right and wrong methods for losing weight and gaining muscle mass. I maintain my blog about dietetics on VKontakte, using infostyle techniques in it. Works
We know that not all the specialists you need have resumes on the site. But I don't want to lose these applicants. Therefore, we have found a solution: from tomorrow, any applicant will be able to respond to your vacancy without a resume!
Why is it needed
There are categories of applicants who find it easier to communicate directly with the employer. These are, for example, working personnel, qualified working personnel, hospitality industry specialists, retail. As a rule, such applicants simply do not need a resume on job search sites, and finding them can be problematic.
How it works
When posting a vacancy, you need to specify prof. areas from our list:
(we will give you a hint by highlighting those specializations where you can get a response without a resume):
And the applicant without a resume will be able to respond by simply leaving his contact phone number and brief information about himself.
When working with responses, you will have a new section “Responses without a resume”, where only applicants who responded in this way will get. The letter itself will contain contact information and short information about the applicant.
We are confident that we are making an important step in the development of online recruitment and we will be glad if you are among those who will be the first to gain access to a new audience of job seekers!
Responding to a specific job is easier than talking about yourself on the site. On the site, you do not know who exactly your message is addressed to. Anyone can come to you: potential client, employer, associate or outsider. It's not clear what people want from you.
With a vacancy, everything is different: the employer clearly tells you what he wants from you. Your task is to tell about it as accurately and honestly as possible, showing a little effort and care.
But let's agree on the shore. To apply for a job, you must meet the requirements.
If you're a student with no experience and want to apply for a sales director job, that's nice, but unlikely to bring results.
If the vacancy says "mandatory presence in the office in Moscow", and you want to work remotely from Kaliningrad - try your luck, but do not expect an answer.
This does not mean that you should not apply for a job - on the contrary, respond to everything that you like. But don't expect to be answered if you don't qualify.
And one more thing: a formal vacancy is written in order to simplify hiring. The firm structures this process in advance in order to find a candidate as quickly as possible. Follow this structure and don't do it yourself.
Some companies need to look at the test item - so do the test item. Others ask to send resume - send. The third need a cover letter - write. The fourth will offer to meet with you ten times, and if you are ready to meet, meet.
Usually, to apply for a vacancy, it is enough to attach a resume and write a cover letter.
With a resume, it's easy. This is just a plate with data about you: where did you study, what did you work with, what were your successes. Resumes have long been compiled according to templates on job search sites, and you no longer need to compose a resume form yourself. Just fill out the form.
It is more difficult with a cover letter: no one explains what to write in it and why it is needed. To understand this, you need to understand how the hiring process works, who reads what and what they want to see.
When a company is looking for an employee, usually at least two people take part in the process: the customer and the personnel officer. The customer is the one who needs new employee. For example, a sales director is looking for a new manager.
Customer- a competent specialist. He understands his business, knows his competitors and can assess in five minutes whether he is a normal specialist or an amateur. If the sales director is looking for a salesperson, he will understand in the first five minutes of the conversation which salesperson is in front of him.
personnel officer is the person who organizes the recruitment: posts a vacancy, accepts applications, sorts suitable ones and organizes interviews. The personnel officer does not understand what the customer understands. His job is not to evaluate candidates, but to get as many responses as possible, select the most suitable ones and arrange interviews with them. Often this means that you need to pull the customer out of his main job and force him to meet with candidates - and the customer has a lot of other things to do.
The personnel officer must bring good candidates to the customer so that the customer selects the best in several meetings. Imagine that the personnel officer works as a filter.
Example. The director of the travel agency gives the task to the personnel officer:
“I need a person to write to us on the blog and social networks. Copywriter or editor for the Internet. Someone young and not too expensive, but definitely in the office and for a full day to be around all the time. Perhaps in six months or a year he will be able to switch to remote work, if he wants to.
Ideally - to have experience in our field. Must be able to write. Salary - as agreed.
Let's as a task, he will write us some article for the blog. Let's look at style and character."
The personnel officer formulates the text of the vacancy from this task:
Blog editor, copywriter
In the office, full-time, in Moscow.
Responsibilities:
Requirements:
Higher education or last year of university;
Experience in writing text for a blog from a year;
Internet writing skills;
Experience in tourism preferred.
Test
Write an article for our travel agency's blog. According to the article, we will understand your style and nature of writing;
Attach a portfolio to the application.
See how the job posting relates to what the director said. This is the same request, only more structured. The HR manager transformed the director's wish into an orderly vacancy and posted it on ten sites.
1. inadequate- swear, write not on business.
2. unsuitable- Adequate, but do not meet the requirements.
3. Suitable- meet all or almost all requirements.
Only eligible responses will be considered by the Director. To get into the "suitable", it is enough to meet all the expectations of the personnel officer and director.
Here's what to write in a cover letter:
Hello!
1. I want to work at the Ogonyok travel agency as a blog editor. I am finishing my last course. language of the Higher School of Economics. For the last two years I have been writing the “Travel” column in our faculty blog: http://
2. I have no experience in the travel business, but I have travel experience: for the last five years, every summer I went on independent trips to the USA, Europe, Scandinavia. Africa and Latin America. From these trips, I brought stories and photo reports for my personal website: http://
3. I live in Moscow, I am ready to work in the office.
4. I am attaching a test task. Since Ogonyok specializes in family vacations, I wrote an article about traveling with children.What do you think?
5. I would be happy to discuss the work or test task: +7 903 ...
Ivan Petrov, editor
Let's analyze how Ivan's letter is arranged and why it is so. From this analysis, the principles of responding to a vacancy will become clear.
Meet requirements
The first and most important thing that the personnel officer will pay attention to is compliance with formal requirements. He will see it on the resume, and if everything fits together, he will find confirmation in the cover letter. Therefore, a good letter should simply and humanly explain how you meet the requirements.
Listed in job posting:
Higher education or last year
Blog writing experience
Internet Writing Skills
Office, full time
Included in the cover letter:
I am finishing in. lang. Higher School of Economics.
I wrote a travel column on the faculty blog.
Stories and photo reports on the personal website: http://
Ready to work full time in the office.
If you do not comply with something, then it is better to say it directly and explain what you plan to do with it:
Experience in tourism - I have no experience in the travel industry, but I love to travel.
Ability to sell over the phone - I've never sold over the phone, but I'd love to learn.
If you don't meet every job requirement, don't give up. You can still apply for a job - but then you have to explain how you will overcome each discrepancy.
In vacancies:
Experience in editorial printed edition from a year.
Knowledge of "Final-kata".
Higher pedagogical education.
In the cover letter:
I have no work experience, but for the last two years at the university I published a printed monthly student magazine, so I understand some of the processes.
I have never worked at Final Kat, but I am ready to master it. Previously, I edited only in Premiere.
I do not have a higher pedagogical education, but I have 5 years of teaching experience.
The fact that you have overcome these contradictions in words does not mean anything. Maybe the personnel officer or the director will not believe you. Maybe they don't have time to wait for you to handle everything. Or the personnel officer simply mechanically weeds out everyone who does not meet the requirements - it is impossible to say for sure. If you do not meet the vacancy on most points, get ready for the fact that your response will go into the void.
Respond with precision
It’s good when a response to a vacancy shows that a person wrote to this particular company and to this particular vacancy, and not just massively sent letters to all approximately similar vacancies.
Thoughtful personnel officers immediately distinguish one from the other:
I want to work in your company
I want to work as an editor in the Ogonyok travel agency.
I have the experience and knowledge that will be useful to work in your company
I have experience as a traveling correspondent, and I really enjoyed this job. It will be interesting for me to carry out your field assignments.
I am very interested in the field of activity of your company and I hope to find application of my knowledge in it
I have been interested in radio electronics since childhood, so I will be glad to join the Amperka team. I am sorry that in my childhood there were no such electronic designers.
Please consider my test task
Since you specialize in children's parties, as a test task, I prepared an overview of this industry for beginners.
I'm interested in your industry
I love photography.
Give evidence
Avoid grading your work. Instead, talk about the results and provide evidence: links, examples, publications, statistics. The results of the work can always be found, even if it seems that they were not there:
No: praise yourself
I successfully worked as a corporate blog editor.
I did a great job as a secretary and office manager.
Together with colleagues, we have achieved outstanding results in sales.
It was a resounding success.
Yes: prove
During the year of work as an editor on a corporate blog, I published 50 articles, which in total received 800,000 views.
The office I supervised always had a supply of tea, coffee, biscuits, water, stationery; and the manager always arrived on time for meetings and never missed a call. To do this, I implemented...
My colleagues from the marketing department and I were able to sell all the apartments in the first three days from the start of sales - these were the fastest sales in the history of the company. For this we used…
They wrote about us in Forbes.
Don't hope
No matter how strange it may sound, but a good response to a vacancy does not mean anything. You can have a great response, you can be a perfect fit, you can write a super-argumented letter in a completely Buddhist manner, but you still may not be invited to an interview. Why? No one knows. Can be anything:
The personnel officer was looking for a girl, and you are a boy. Or vice versa;
You are too young. Or too old;
You are too Muscovite. Or too out of the province;
The personnel officer did not like your name or page on the social network;
The director thought you were too good;
The vacancy was outdated - in fact, the candidate had already been found;
You were the third responder and the first one got the job;
While they were looking for a person, the need for him disappeared;
The director was fired. The staff member was fired. The company was closed;
Instead of staff member an agency was hired for this task;
The mail server is broken;
Yes, just "for no reason", for no reason.
You cannot influence these reasons. All you can do is prepare the best possible response, submit it, and get back to business. Never put everything on one vacancy, even if you are one hundred percent sure that you will be offered a place. Always apply for multiple vacancies. It is better to receive several offers than to tear your heart in anticipation of a response from the very one - the only one.
When we respond to a vacancy, we do not know who and how will make a decision on the other side. This is not necessary. When you find suitable job, everything will work itself out. Until then, write calmly and thoughtfully. And never lie.
