How (NOT?) To Apply to Jobmine

Hey there first time jobminers! I have some well thought out advice for you from my years of job mining experience that will ease stress, prevent disappointment and maybe even get you a decent first coop experience.  By the time this article is published, the first and second round of applications will be closed.  That’s OK! You still might have the ever important lightning round ahead of you.

The lightning round, also called the continuous round, is the best round anyways.  In fact, I would advise you to never apply to rounds one and two. I never do.  In rounds one and two, you have to wait an entire month before the rankings come out.  That means you could really like the job for your first interview and get the offer, and then you have to go to a bunch of other interviews for crappy jobs that you applied to without really reading the description. The lightning round is where it’s at, you do an interview and then do the ranking the same day.  If you didn’t get the job, there are tonnes more out there that you can apply to everyday.  You may even be blessed with having an interview during finals, which is always a good conversation starter during an interview.  For example you if your interviewer says: “How’s it going?”  you can reply “Horribly, I just got destroyed on a final and I have to cram for one tomorrow but instead I have this stupid interview”.  Then you can all laugh.  Trust me, it’s a good way to break the ice.  Another advantage to applying to the lightning round is that it’s slim pickings for the employers.  By that time, all the best jobs would have been taken by the best candidates.  That leaves a bunch of mediocre and crappy jobs for you to pick and choose from. However, the quality of jobs matches the quality of applicants, making it easier for your underwhelming and under qualified self!  Trust me, things will click into place when you are going up against Christy from 1A Enviro whose work experience consists of a summer job at Wendy’s instead of 2B Jerry of Mechanical who has worked at Apple, Harvard and NASA!  Talk about an easy offer!

Now that you know when to apply, the next step is to know who to apply to.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to explicitly call out underwhelming employers (ahem…..most Government of Canada jobs) as the Iron Warrior wouldn’t allow it.  I can tell you an easy way to screen applications.  You may be overwhelmed the first time you do a job search at all the various jobs you encounter.  Well there’s a list of red flags that I use to tell me not to apply to a job which should help you narrow down the field.  Here’s the big two:  The first one is cover letters.  If I open up a job description and see in red lettering that I have to attach a cover letter: RED FLAG. I have no time to write a cover letter, I’m too busy applying to a bunch of other jobs from employers who are not snobby enough to require cover letters.  If I open up a job description and it says in red lettering “Please apply to Jobmine and at ………”: RED FLAG.  I use Jobmine’s somewhat annoying interface for a reason: so I can apply to a bunch of jobs in one place with a couple of clicks.  Sometimes, however, I go against my advice and apply to a job that requires a cover letter or a separate application.  I may have actually read the description and found it to sound really cool.  If I do apply to one of those jobs I take extra care to make sure I don’t include a cover letter or apply separately.  I feel that I show my independent and sometimes wildcard-like nature by explicitly ignoring instructions. One time I applied to a job and got an interview and realised after that the description said a cover letter was required.  That just goes to show that employers either don’t really care for cover letters, or they are looking for people who have a little bit of wildcard in them. Plus, any employer who has enough time to scan through 100 two page cover letters instead of doing their real job is probably not someone you want to work for. Well this has been How (NOT?) to Apply to Jobmine.  I’ll leave it to you to discern the fact from the fiction.