The Covering Letter

It's a peril that can not be avoided. No-one goes through life only having had one job from graduation to retirement. You've got to apply for jobs, and what happens when you do that? The unalterable and inevitable ordeal is that of writing good and hopefully accurate things about yourself. I say 'hopefully' because there are many people who miss the 'accurate' part of this equation, and exaggerate (or lie through their teeth) as much as possible. The covering letter and the supporting statement are the curses of people who can't quite stand being less than one hundred per-cent honest, in that the process of writing reveals the applicant's own self-perceived inadequacies.

The problem is that if you're obsessed with the ethical side of life, then you are faced fully with the knowledge that the sin of omission is just as much a deception as the sin of commission. If you leave out the things you don't want people to know, it's still deceiving. Yes, people say it's okay to overstate and exaggerate a little on a CV, to 'massage the truth' a little, but it always feels wrong. This is the curse of the occasionally compulsive truthteller, that lost soul whose only alternative is not to reply at all to the nastiest of questions. Part of the battle for us pitiable souls is that we don't believe the good things we could be writing about ourselves, good things which could often be correct.

Oh, why does job hunting have to be so difficult? You would think a PhD would knock down doors, but somehow nothing quite works. It's not the qualification's fault, but that of the lack of confidence behind it. Sometimes it's wrong to not hype up your accomplishments, because it's your own lack of confidence that is making them seem small. The cure for a lack of confidence is the hardest one of all: You have find something you can do, do well, and do it until your confidence is better than it was. If you can't find that thing, then you have to keep looking. You might get lucky and find it, or you might not, but why not try? Big words, and hypocritical ones, but maybe useful.

Blast, no more time for writing this today. More covering letters await, as does a letter in Spanish, a much delayed missive. In the next few days there will be masses of computations, many correspondences, job applications galore, a mass of TEFL online content to do, and a much delayed podcast edit. Watch, imaginary readers, and experience the descent into fevered madness from overwork. All that, and a post on the movie 'The Hot Rock'. Gosh, what work it is to keep up with the hobbies!

O.