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Dear Hiring Unit

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Clarissa

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We all need to spread the word that people should stop using AI to write cover letters when looking for jobs.

Today, I received 6 cover letters from applicants, and they are all lengthy, unreadable mush. I have no idea what any of them say. I’m not even going to respond. They call me “dear hiring manager” and promise to “do my best work for your highly esteemed unit”. My “unit”, can you believe it? I’m a nameless manager running a unit.

And yes, of course, my job ad had my name, title, and department.

3 responses to “Dear Hiring Unit”

  1. methylethyl Avatar
    methylethyl

    I feel a sick thrill of anticipation about this, actually.

    For more than a decade already, for everybody below the “send us your resume” career level, applying for jobs has been a suburb of purgatory. Ever since indeed.com became the job listing hub. I know you fancy people use Linkedin and “networking” (whatever the heck that is) and stuff. For the rest of us, it’s glitchy online applications that are like 50 pages long, want so much personal info you feel like you’ve had a colonoscopy, administer not-so-stealthy personality and IQ tests that take 45 minutes to complete, make you feel like a criminal, and time out and make you start over if you get up to use the bathroom or answer the phone. Because you’re competing with auto-fill bots and paid job-applying services, you have to fill out like 50 of these to get a single callback, you can do 8 in a day, tops (if you’re an actual human and not a spambot), all to get a job that will pay you less than $20/hr.

    If AI infiltration of academic job applications hastens us to the point where the whole dehumanizing electronic job-applying system breaks… Hell yeah! Burn it down!

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  2. Avi Avatar
    Avi

    Well, at least you’ve found a great way of getting someone else to sort the sheep from the goats for you at no extra cost.

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  3. Post Alley Crackpot Avatar
    Post Alley Crackpot

    Secretary to boss on phone: “There’s an angry demon waiting for you to show up to interview him for the job.”

    Interviewee: “Angry angel, not angry demon, please do get it right.”

    Secretary: “So why has your halo burst into flames?”

    Interviewee: “I wasn’t aware applying for this job required me to venture through Purgatory.”

    Secretary to boss on phone: “Correction, God has sent someone personally to deal with your multitude of sins and he’s waiting outside your office.”

    Interviewee: “And now he’s never going to show up, but it’s OK, I can work with this.”

    Interviewee on the phone: “So, Lucifer, you remember how there’s this favour you owe me, well, here’s the address …”

    [Secretary looks at interviewee with shocked look]

    Interviewee to secretary: “What? Look on the bright side! New boss! Let’s do this again tomorrow, shall we?”

    🙂

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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