OK so a few days ago I posted an ad on Kijiji, a free online classified ad tool (very similar to craigslist.org) for an Online Marketing Assistant, here’s the ad:

Our dynamic online marketing company seeks a part time marketing assistant to help make a great website even greater. With over 30 years in our selected industry we’re looking for people who are passionate about working with services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. 

Your task will be to help optimize and organize over 30 years of television for the online market, build online profiles for industry leaders, create content on leading websites and help build the best site possible.

Hours are flexible, this is an ideal position for students or working parents with important schedules to keep. Pay is $10 per hour.

http://fredericton.kijiji.ca/c-jobs-part-time-students-Online-Marketing-Assistant-W0QQAdIdZ120586983

In my defense

Now, I know the pay isn’t much but I figured at $10 per hour I would be able to find a couple qualified students, possibly some stay-at-home parents or even a few people who are willing to take this on as an “earn while you learn” situation. After all, $10 isn’t great but it’s a lot better than the $7.50 you’ll earn flipping burgers so …

I purposely crafted the ad (which is actually for a client) to be appealing to part time workers and reinforced the notion that this wasn’t for a startup, so I was hoping to see a bit of effort put forth from some of the applicants (after all this was an online ad for an online marketing person right?) but here’s what I got:

Hi, 

I saw you ad and thought that it would be something I would be interested in. 

thank you, 
P–

– really? You thought that you might be interested in me giving you money? That’s really nice P.

I am currently the marketing communications officer of a software and consulting company and I would like the opportunity to work part-time for you. I would really like to hear more about the position. Thank you, L–

- Yep, nothing says hire me like promoting the fact that you’re already in a job, mmmmm …. loyalty.

Hello, 

My name is A–, and I’m a University student [edit]. I am currently looking for a summer job, and I saw your ad. 

I would like to know more information on this job please. What are the duties? Where is it located? 

Thank you. 

A–

– OK, in truth this kid’s at least got a chance of me being nice to him.

What does the job entail?

– I kid you not, that’s all she wrote 

I would be interested in this type of part time work. Roughly how many hours per week would be required? Please reply with this and any other pertinent information. Thanks.

– Again, this wasn’t so bad.

Hi 
Where can i get more information on this job? 
Thanks 
L–

– Not too painful but pretty dull.

Notice a trend? Not one of them sent me a link to their resume, their qualifications or why I should care. Actually, what really kind of pissed me off was that almost all of the responses felt like a cut-and-paste response.

How should you respond to a job ad?

OK I can’t believe that I’m writing this but … I make a lot of money responding to people on websites, especially when I see a posting like the one above for something that I can easily do (ie fix WordPress) so how do I respond to these people?

1. I assess what they need
2. I determine if I can assist
3. I write a three to five sentence summary
4. I paste a standard two paragraph response complete with links

So for example, if I was going to apply for my own online marketing position (and keeping in mind that the space to reply is fairly limited) my response would look something like this:

I came across your posting today and believe that I’d be perfect for your marketing position. I have over 15 years experience on the web, have published content YouTube and created Facebook ad campaigns. My experience with Twitter is limited but I’m eager to learn and my schedule allows to me work when needed.

I’m a self starter, hard working and passionate about online marketing. My resume is online at http://thisismyurl.com where I blog about WordPress and online marketing daily.

Thank you, I hope we can talk about your opportunity and how I can help. – Christopher

Was that really so hard?