If you want to work with me, there are some rules

I’m looking for a new job.  Technical Writer or Business Analyst are the closest fit to what I did at my last job.  I posted on Monster, and the avalanche began.  Most of the initial contacts were from local companies, but now I’m getting hits from organizations that I’ve never heard of, wanting to represent me on jobs that I’ve already seen through other sources.

My real problem is the quality of these contacts.  I feel like I’m being spammed.  You know, the messages with bad grammar that sound like they were written by ESL students.  Here’s one example:

Hello ,
Hope you are doing good,
I got a job opening for you as a “Technical Writer”. If you are available and interested, please send your updated resume asap.

As you can see, this was probably semi-automated, as there’s an odd space after “Hello.” There’s bad grammar and several examples of bad punctuation.   Not too awful, but check out the next one.  It’s from the same company, but a different sender.

Hello {my first name},
Hope you are doing good.
 
I have an Immediate requirement for Technical Writer, Please respond with your  updated resume in a word format with  a best number to reach you if your interested in this position.

If you read this, it sounds more literate than the first one, mostly because it uses bigger words.  However, there are more errors, and they are more egregious.  There are capitalizations that do not belong, there’s bad punctuation, extra spaces everywhere, and the use of your instead of you’re or you are.  Plus the obnoxious use of “doing good” when asking about my health and well-being.

After thinking about this, I could do one of two things.  I could ignore these messages, or I could reply to each one of them, pointing out the errors.  However, that would be helpful.  I don’t think in this case being helpful to these folks would be a good idea in the greater scheme of things.  It goes against my nature to do this, but I choose to ignore them.  If you want to help me get a job as a technical writer, at least do the courtesy of running a spelling and grammar check on your communications.

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