ANSWERING AN AD TO A NEWSPAPER BOX

When answering an Ad that asks you to send your resume to the Newspaper i.e.,The Wall Street Journal Box 123, we can't find out who the company is that has the opening. But we do know that the person who will read your letter and resume first is someone in the personnel department who really doesn't know the difference between a programmer and a systems analyst. That person will have your resume in one hand and the job specs. in the other hand trying to match buzz words. It's a very subjective method of screening a resume. What we want to do is take all the guess work out of that screening and increase the chances of getting your resume in front of the hiring authority.

Heres the only way to answer this type of Ad:

You start out your letter in the classic way by saying Dear Sir/madam I'm responding to your Ad in the Wall Street Journal, ETC., ETC. Take 4 or 5 highlights out of the Ad and in your cover letter put them in column form on the left hand side of your cover letter and title the column , Your Requirements. Start a right hand column titled My Qualifications.

Your RequirementsMy Qualifications
BSCSBSCS plus MBA
5 years experience4 years experiance
CobolCobol
Financial applicationsBanking applications

What you have done here is taken all the guess work out of the screening process. What you're saying is,"Here's what you asked for and here's what I have. Get my paper work up to the hiring authority." This method works much better than any other method of responding to this type of Ad.