Four Reasons You Aren’t Responding To My Job Application Email
by Spenser Davis

1. You are a filthy scammer, and your Craigslist ad was just a ploy to get my e-mail address. I’ve blogged about this at length, and now I know that pretty much every Craiglist job ad is just a shady guy waiting to take advantage of innocent morons like myself.
2. I’m overqualified for the job, and you don’t want to waste my valuable time. Surely I am too busy fending off the other responses to my desperate cover letter and feeble resume. You read my blog and figured that NBC was already drawing up the contract to turn my amazing life story into a pilot. You think, “I bet they get Owen Wilson to play him.” You know that I would never need the job as assistant editor at a small, regional blog because I’ll be jet-setting around the world with supermodels.
3. I don’t have 2–3 years experience for your entry-level job. Because the time I spent applying for job after job in the past year was wasted, when I could have been working entry-level jobs to get the experience I need for this one. My time working retail because I got lucky and applied during the holidays is useless for the assistant copywriter job at your startup that only hires the best, brightest, and most experienced workers.
4. You just don’t like me. You hate me, even. You saw my resume and were jealous that I went to a private, liberal arts school that may or may not have had a successful football team in the past few years. You gnashed your teeth at my accomplishments as a bookseller and student intern at my old English Department. Your eyes flash green when you see my name in all its glory above “Bachelor of Arts in Writing and Film-TV-Digital Media.” All you can think of is how you wish you were me, and you could never hire someone that inspires such a jealous rage within you.
Spenser is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Rumpus, Structo Magazine, and EPL Talk. He can be found writing and tweeting about books, technology, and other unmarketable things at spenserdavis.com and twitter.com/spenserdavis. Photo: Shutterstock/olly
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