While I am not the reigning Queen Bee of spelling or grammar, I have to share today’s job inquiry email. It belongs in one of those “what not to do” articles you find on Career Builder, Monster, and the like. It’s so bad, I keep wondering if it’s a joke.

My name is (name withheld). I visited your website it’s really nice, well done! I was wonder if I would like to be part of your team, what I would need? The reason why I ask is because, I am interesting in Interior Design field and I don’t know where to start. Right now I Office Manager for a non-profit and I afraid that if I decide to go and work for any job relate to Interior Design will be retail and I don’t want that. I used to work for Marshall’s as Mechardise Coordinator of Home Decor + Visual Merchandise and is great but the schedulle and the pay aren’t that good. I took classes at the Interior Design Institute @ ACC. Any recomendetion will be welcome.

How do I even begin to respond to this?!

Heavy sigh.

  1. Thank you for complimenting my Web site.

  2. At the very least, spell check.

  3. Microsoft Word will even help you grammar check.

  4. “Took classes” is not enough. “Took classes” = “pay (isn’t) that good.” If you want a better job with better pay, you have to educate yourself. Who doesn’t know this?

  5. You probably shouldn’t spend 25% of your inquiry letter whining about previous jobs or jobs you don’t want.

  6. If you are not willing to work hard for little pay in the beginning of your career, you are obviously not passionate about the work and should find another career field to go into. It’s called paying your dues. If you have little education and/or experience, why should you be paid as if you do?

  7. You come across as dim and confused. Two outstanding qualities in a potential employee! (Oops, you obviously don’t have a firm grip on your vocabulary, so I’ll refer you to the definition of sarcasm.)

  8. The entire industry of interior design revolves around details, details, details. By the looks of your letter, I’m thinking you kind of suck at this.