Took me 10 years to realize I was emailing my resume wrong

I used to just attach my resume and say "here's my resume" in the email body. Thought that was normal. Last month a recruiter I know in Phoenix straight up told me she deletes those in seconds. She said I needed to write 3-4 sentences matching my skills to the job posting right in the email. I tried it for 5 applications and got 2 callbacks. Before that I sent out maybe 50 the old way and got nothing. Has anyone else had a simple change like that totally flip their results?

4 comments

4 Comments

the_wyatt1mo ago

That's how most people miss the obvious stuff until someone spells it out for them.

the_eric26d agoMost Upvoted

Think most people overthink this stuff and still end up in the same place anyway.

rubys8026d ago

Back in 2018 I worked with a career coach in Austin who told me the same thing. I had been sending plain "attached is my resume" emails for years too. She made me write a three sentence summary in the email body that directly answered "here's why I fit this job" and it changed everything. My callback rate went from maybe 1 out of 20 to like 1 out of 5. The trick is to literally copy a keyword from their job posting and show you've done it. Like if they say "managed social media accounts" you write "I managed 5 Instagram accounts that grew by 20% in 6 months" right there in the email. It sounds too simple to work but recruiters are just people skimming fast and they need that connection spelled out for them.

felix_williams711mo ago

Wait, so you really just said "here's my resume" for 10 years? Man... I did the same thing for way too long too. It's funny how something so tiny can make such a huge difference. @the_wyatt is right, we just don't see what's right in front of us until someone points it out. For me, the big change was when I stopped sending the same generic email to every job and started reading the listing like it was a clue or something. I'd pick one thing they asked for and say "I've done that, here's how" in the email body. Night and day results after that, just like you found. Makes you wonder how many other little tricks we're all missing out on...