Read The Insulting 3,000-Word Rejection Letter Sent To 900 Job Applicants

This post originally appeared at Gawker.
Read more: http://gawker.com/5896584/heres-how-to-condescend-to-900-job-applicants-with-a-3000+word-rejection-letter#ixzz2CI96HzEq

We were forwarded this rejection email, apparently sent to more than 900 hopeful applicants in one bulk delivery, by a reader who shall remain anonymous. (The person is, after all, still looking for a job).

“I don’t find it helpful,” the rejected applicant wrote. “I just find it arrogant.”

“At first I thought I’d made it to the second round,” the reader said on the phone this evening, “but then I realized I’d been Bcc’d, along with 900 others, on my own rejection letter.”

Here it is, in all its bullet-point glory:

————— Forwarded message —————
From: Shea Gunther
Date: Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 12:14 PM
Subject: You applied for a position at my clean tech news site

Hello,

If you’re reading this, it means that you applied for one of the positions open at my new clean tech news site (this ad->http://louisville.craigslist.org/wri/2894902027.html). I’m Shea and it’s been my job to do the first read-through of the 900+ applications that have poured in as a result of our ad.

I have gone through each of the applications as they have come in and picked out the best 50 or so to be passed into the second round of consideration. Some of you are amazing candidates that I am really excited to learn more about. Those of you who are passed into the second round of consideration will be hearing from us soon, if you haven’t been contacted by us already.

Others applications have come in from strong writers who just aren’t a great fit for what we are trying to do. When you have a pool of 900+ applications, you can be picky, and we passed over many worthy people simply because they don’t have enough experience in clean technology and green media. I would advise anyone without enough of the right experience who wants to break into environmental writing to start a personal blog and write about the things you want to get paid to cover. You are welcome to get back in touch with us in the future after you’ve built a more focused portfolio.

Beyond those two groups, there were applications that were skipped over after just a quick read—the brutal truth is that the very worst applications got less than a few seconds of consideration. Often I could tell from the first few words of an application that it would be passed over. I was helped by the fact that we are hiring writers; if a person can’t craft a good email applying for a writing job, she’s unlikely to be the kind of writer we are looking to hire.

As I went through your applications, I couldn’t help but jot down ideas on how some of you could improve your job hunting email skills. As evidenced by the response to our ad, there are a lot of people out there looking for work right now and you need every advantage that you can get if you want to beat them to a good job. If your application email sucks, you are going to be left looking for work for a long time because you will get flushed out with the first filter every time you apply for a job. Some of your applications are that bad.

I have broken my suggestions down into a list of 42 writing job application dos and don’ts.

Good luck.

Combining APM, PMI and PRINCE2 into a Holistic Approach to Project Management?

BY PAUL NAYBOUR
Source: http://www.arraspeople.co.uk/camel-blog/projectmanagement/combining-apm-pmi-and-prince2-into-a-holistic-approach-to-project-management/

In this article we will discuss the pros and cons of APM, PMI and PRINCE2 for individuals and organisations wishing to develop competence in project management and how they can be combined into a common approach which delivers a holistic approach giving organisations who deliver project for clients a real competitive edge and a more effective approach to project management.

Project managers have a wide range of choice for project management trainingincluding certification and non certification courses. In the certification arena that have choice between
1. PMP qualification from the USA based Project Management Institute (PMI)
2. PRINCE2 which is the project management method sponsored by the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC)
3. Qualifications from the International Project Management Association (IPMA), which vary from country to country but are represented in the UK by qualifications from the Association for Project Management.

A range of other project related qualifications exist targeted at the needs of specific sectors, such as ITIL.
As an alternative many organisations develop their own bespoke training programmes which are targeted at the specific needs within that organisation. Often these are supplemented by top up certification courses.

APM	PMI	PRINCE2
Advantages A range of qualifications from introductory to advanced project management. A pragmatic approach to project management based on a published Body of Knowledge. Competences include leadership and management of teams. Very strong within certain sectors in the UK including defence, infrastructure, telecoms. Links to professional development.	Advantages Most widely recognised global project management qualification. Computer based test can be administered from anywhere in the world. Detailed comprehensive body of knowledge (PMBoK) available in many languages. Requirement for experience and formal training add value to qualification. Formal requirement for CPD to maintain certification.	Advantages Most widely recognised project management in the UK. Increasing value in the international market. Clear and simple step by step process to follow. Detailed and comprehensive PRINCE2 manual. Need for ongoing certification to maintain credibility
Disadvantages Only recognised strongly in the UK and other parts of the commonwealth. Examinations and certification are not computer based making logistic more difficult outside the UK. Body of knowledge lacks the detail in the PMBoK and PRINCE2 manual	Disadvantages Not widely recognised in the UK. Highest level of qualification in the PMP with no options for further development beyond this knowledge level. Need to learn the PMBoK way for working which may not reflect practice in your organisation.	Disadvantages Method only works in a PRINCE2 environment. It can be hard to apply PRINCE2 to general project management. Excludes the important area of people leadership and management. Only strongly recognised in the UK

Looking to the future it would be good to see these different standards combined into one common approach. Parallel Project Training recently did this for one of its international programme management consultancy clients with offices around the world. It can be relatively easily done, especially since the release of the new 2009 PRINCE2 manual.
Combining the best of all three approaches into one common method?

It is relatively simple to produce a combined method that meets the requirements of all three approaches. A detailed analysis of the APM and PMI BoKs reveals that they have much in common. The high level nature of the APM Bok is helpful here because its knowledge areas are very similar to the PMI BoK. The fourth edition of the PMI BoK increased this similarity because many of the changes brought it is much closer to the APM BoK in the areas such as risk management.

PRINCE2 is slightly more difficult to integrate, because it has a much wider definition or project management and views the project from the perspective of a client organisation. It is much more concerned with the formulation and management of the project business case, governance structures and interface to the users in client business to ensure the benefits are realised. This is understandable because of its roots in national government. It pays less attention to the mechanisms for the delivery of the project.

The PMI Bok however views the project as more of a delivery process for the scope defined on the project charter. It pays less attention to the processes used to formulate the project charter in the first place and the governance of the project by the client. PRINCE2 is however very weak on the delivery mechanisms such as resource planning
However these two approached (PRINCE2 and PMBoK) form a useful complement, with PRINCE2 clearly describing the processes for the formulation, governance and control of the project charter (project brief) and business case. The PMBoK described in more detail the processes to turn the project charter (project brief) into deliverables. By the way the APM BoK covers both these processes although at a high level.

Any multinational organisation that can demonstrate compliance to all three of the major international standard for project management has both a real competitive edge but also a more holistic approach and effective approach to project management. For more information contact Parallel Project Training.

 

Will We Be Better Off in 2016?

By ADAM DAVIDSON
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/will-we-be-better-off-in-2016.html?ref=economy

Now that the campaign is almost over, it’s clear that this presidential cycle was all about the economy. Just not the economy we’re actually entering. This thought crossed my mind during the second presidential debate as Mitt Romney declared that, if elected, he would label China as a currency manipulator. It was a rehearsed entreaty meant to appeal to thousands of frustrated manufacturing workers and their bosses in Rust Belt states. But it mainly confirmed how far we are from understanding our place in the new global economy.

Adam Davidson translates often confusing and sometimes terrifying economic and financial news.

Not that long ago, the U.S. had that global economy all to itself. From the 1950s to the 1980s, it was the world’s dominant producer and consumer. In countries spanning Europe to Latin America, and throughout Asia, success was determined by how well they could siphon off a bit of this incredible growth. Things began to change in the 1970s, however, when Japan and Germany started making cars and factory equipment and electronic gadgets that beat their American competitors. And for the next 30 years, the U.S. struggled to adjust to increasingly competitive Asian and Latin American producers. But as long as it remained the world’s largest consumer market, the U.S. maintained lots of leverage. The government persuaded Pakistan to join the global war on terror, for instance, partly by promising its sock manufacturers duty-free access to its market.

Want to Know When Someone is Lying to You?

Source: http://synergology.wordpress.com/facial-muscles/

Want to know whether someone is lying to you? Just look at the person’s eyebrows and lips, they can give you the answer, scientists say. (April ’12)

A team from the University of British Columbia in Canada claimed to have identified four facial muscles that can “leak” a person’s true feelings like guilt, amid intense emotional pressures.

While liars were betrayed by tiny movements that caused them to raise their eyebrows in surprised expressions and smile slightly, innocent people tended to furrow their brow in genuine “expressions of distress”, the researchers found.

A person’s lack of control over their facial expressions meant genuine feelings could be differentiated from fake emotion, they said. Most humans, according to them, can control lower face muscles to talk or eat but those in the upper face are difficult to manipulate and can spark involuntary behaviour.

“Our research suggests that muscles of the face are not under complete conscious control and certain muscles are likely to betray the liar, particularly in high-stakes and highly emotional situations,” Dr Leanne ten Brinke, who led the study, told The Daily Telegraph.  ”Facial cues are an important, but often ignored, aspect of credibility assessments where an emotional issue is in question,” she said.  ”Cues to emotional deception are likely to occur when the underlying emotion a liar is attempting to mask, is relatively strong.”

In the study, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour ( april ’12), the researchers analysed facial expressions of a group of people — half of whom were later proved to be lying — as they made emotional televised pleas for the safe return of a missing relative.  They found that deceptive pleaders raised their forehead muscles, called the frontalis, which gave off surprised expressions.

Liars also had increased activity of the “zygomatic majormuscles”, located around the mouth, which caused them to inadvertently lift their lips into a smile, found the team that also viewed over 23,000 frames of video from real-life cases in Britain, America, Canada and Australia.

Dr ten Brinke, from the university’s Centre for the Advancement of Psychological Science and Law (CAPSL), said the study found muscles “leaked” signs of true emotion because of the person’s subconscious actions.

This compared to “genuine pleaders”, who activated their inner frontalis and “corrugator supercilli”, located between the eyebrows, which caused them to frown and furrow their brow in a genuine “an expression of distress. While genuine pleaders show real distress on their face, the deceptive pleaders are unable to replicate that same activation,” Dr ten Brinke said. While the findings were important for “lie catchers”, she cautioned they did not provide a “Pinocchio’s nose”.

“Not everyone will leak their true emotions, and some people are better than others at adopting a false face (such as) psychopaths,” she added.

Crucial Body Language Cues to Know When Doing Business Abroad

Source: http://www.onlinemba.com/blog/crucial-body-language-cues-to-know-when-doing-business-abroad/

Going to a foreign country? You can study up on Berlitz tapes or Rosetta Stone all you want, but in any culture, the verbal particulars tell only part of the story. Subtleties of tone and posture make up a large part of communication, even between fellow countrymen. The language barrier just puts even more pressure on nonverbal expression. So before you flip the Burmese version of the bird, or try to give a German prime minister a friendly shoulder rub, you should try to have a clear idea of the rubric of understanding through which your gestures will be interpreted, the standards of behavior to follow. Here are some of the most costly slip-ups you’ll want to avoid, most of which would be totally unremarkable back home:

• Don’t point with your finger.

  This is probably the single most likely body language mistake to get travelers in trouble, because it’s very widely considered rude in many different countries … while in those cultures that lack such a taboo, it hardly occurs to us that anyone would find such a clear and expedient gesture vulgar. After all, we call it an “index” finger precisely because it’s used to, well, indicate things.

  The best alternative is probably to gesture with an open-palmed hand, which makes sense, as it has the connotation of being inviting, rather than potentially accusatory. This latter issue may also be why some cultures do make a distinction between pointing qua pointing and pointing at somebody. It may help to think of your finger as a make-believe pistol: never point it at another human being, even if it’s not loaded.

• Don’t eat (or do any number of other things) with the left hand.

  Those of us who are southpaws may find this offensive, but in many lands there remains a strong prejudice in favor of the right hand and against the left. Most famously, in India and throughout the Muslim world, the left hand has always been designated for, ahem, certain necessary-but-unpleasant tasks. This is not some xenophobic urban legend, but a simple historical reality: mankind had to develop a lot of other ways to clean up before Cottonelle® came along. Indeed, many people still see our beloved modern convenience as less “clean” and prefer the old-fashioned method.

  Even in countries where Western toilet habits are firmly (but softly?) established, a certain spiritual unease about the left hand is common. The transgressive form of Tantra, for instance, the (rough) Buddhist equivalent of black magic, is called vamachara, “left-handed attainment.” We in the West have our own history of superstitions about handedness; it seems practically universal. Probably it’s that most people are genetically inclined to be right-handed, and we view the unusual as suspicious. If you do use your left hand to gesture, eat, or pass an item to someone, they probably won’t suspect you of sinister intentions or leftist agitation, but they may very well find your behavior gauche.

• Don’t do the OK sign.

  You know that gesture you make where you join your index finger and thumb, to signal OK? Well, in some places, it’s very much not OK, OK? It means “money” in Japan, signals the “evil eye” in the Middle East, is an aggressive gesture in Brazil, and in Greece or Turkey it’s even more offensive (denoting a certain body part that’s already entered the discussion here, and which people don’t typically like to be called). Unfortunately, the closest American equivalent, a thumbs-up, is also used in certain parts of Asia and the Middle East as a shove-it gesture akin to flipping the bird.

• No come-hither gestures.

  That curling finger or fingers indicating that you want somebody to head over your way … you can perhaps see how this one could be taken as a bit too forward, even in our own permissive society. There’s something presumptuous, sensual, and potentially creepy about it. But in Asia it’s much worse: it’s considered an insult, a gesture appropriate only for beckoning animals. To Singaporeans it even symbolizes death. Yikes. Considering that Singapore is a common business destination with strict rules and some very colorful ideas about Hell, you might not want to come across as the Grim Reaper.

• The infamous chin flick.

  In parts of Europe, especially Italy, the gesture of flicking the top of one’s hand out from under one’s chin is a common gesture of defiance or disregard: not obscene, exactly, but very dismissive. On occasion, an innocent scratch of the chin can be mistaken for this contemptuous maneuver.

• Be careful where you point your feet.

  In many cultures, the feet are considered an unclean body part due to contact with the ground. (Thus the grave insult of shoe-throwing, once directed at George W. Bush, who, one must admit regardless of one’s political leaning, managed to dodge both shots with panache.) Avoid pointing your toes or soles at another. Never throw your feet up on a desk, unless you’re back in America, at your own desk, and you’re a cigar-smoking tycoon with a monocle.

• V is not always for victory.

  Take the two-fingered victory sign made famous by Churchill (or the hippie peace sign). Now turn it around. What do you get? The number two? Not if you’re in Britain, which is among the countries where this is the equivalent of our middle-finger salute. So don’t try to order two baskets of fish and chips this way, unless you want a scalding cod across your face.

• Nothing, not even nodding, is universal.

  “If you smile at me, I will understand, cause that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language.” That’s an uplifting thought (even in a song that seems to be about survivors of a nuclear holocaust), but is it true?

  To respond with another, older song, “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” Whether we like it or not, in this tower of Babel we call Earth, there’s such a huge diversity of cultures that even a smile doesn’t always mean the same thing. Grin at strangers in Prague or Seoul and they may peg you as a lunatic.

  Meanwhile, in Bulgaria they shake their heads “yes” and nod “no.” To indicate “yes” in India, you shake your head left to right in a “bobble” motion.

So what’s a poor confused traveler to do? First and foremost, just do your homework. For each country you visit, at least skim a guidebook. Is that so much to ask? You don’t want to come across as the famous “ugly American.” When in doubt, reticence is best. Speak and move as unassumingly as possible, especially when it comes to hand gestures.

And do less talking and more listening (and observing). You can take your cues from how others carry themselves. Go by the ancient saying attributed to St. Ambrose: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Unless what the Romans do is flick their chins at you, in which case, it’s probably best not to reciprocate. Capisci?