De-clutter your application process! How to choose from 1000s of applications the few that you should interview – within a couple of hours. Peirene can help. Call her – NOW. You will save money and time.
‘What’s that?’ I’m standing by the printer waiting for my document to come out. In the meantime I have picked up the printed sheet that was lying in the tray.
Peirene jumps up from her desk, dashes over and pulls the piece of paper out of my hands. ‘Don’t look. It’s not finished. I’m still experimenting.’ She returns to her seat, bends over the printed page and starts scribbling.
‘Please tell me,’ I beg. ‘I’m intrigued.’
She doesn’t stop writing but says: ‘On Saturday at the dinner party your friend Jack described his company’s recruiting process for summer interns. They use online maths tests, verbal reasoning tests and even a computer programme to analyse CVs. And still, the best candidates slip through their net. Well-‘ the Nymph takes a sharp intake of breath, ‘no one of course asked me. But I know the solution. All they need to do, is ask the candidates to send in a good old fashion application letter – either by post or email. Isn’t that how you and I can now tell within seconds whether to interview or not? We look at the first couple of lines of their covering letter. If the applicant manages to say something personal about our publishing house – something that shows that they’ve viewed our website, read a couple of our books, or attended one of our events, then they are moved to the next stage. It’s shocking how few applicants get that right. But when they do, it shows commitment, thoughtfulness and engagement. And we’ve never regretted hiring those kinds of people.’
‘I agree, Peirene.’ I shrug my shoulders. ‘But I’m not sure where you are heading with this.’
‘So I thought of a supplementary income stream for us. I will send flyers to all big companies in London offering my services as an application process declutterer.’
‘Good luck with that,’ I laugh. ‘ I suspect that many of these HR departments feel – like Jack’s company – that they have designed a state of the art process.’
The Nymph pulls a face. ‘I will never give up hope that the world will one day listen to an ancient Greek Nymph and be saved.’
By Meike Ziervogel
Image by Pedro Ribeiro Simões, creative commons.
This blog was originally published as part of Peirene Press‘s series Things Syntactical. The Pain and Passion of a Small Publisher on 7 February 2016.