We asked developers to comment on real-life letters sent to us by recruiters. Phil Rangin and Andrii Sundukov read and evaluated the message live, and we made an article out of it – enja!

Letter #1

Name of the candidate, good day! My name is , I am from Company name) would be happy to meet and offer to consider the position of a go developer in the direction of: Link to the job description

Here is a link to a video about the direction, tells the direction with the hand.

How relevant and interesting is it for you now?

In any case, I will be glad to meet you)

Phil’s comment: This letter does not contain the things that I am looking for and that I need to know. I have no way of knowing from the description whether this job is suitable for me or not. And I’m unlikely to answer this recruiter. As for video, if I’m passively searching, I’m definitely not going to watch a half-hour video.

Andriy’s comment: Agree about the video. It seems that in 10 years of my activity, I have seen something like this only once.

What is wrong:

1. there is no salary fork

2. unclear whether removal or office

3. no grade is specified

4. the country is not specified (this is especially important now)

Letter #2

Subject of the letter: 💬 Vacancy Frontend developer

Name of the candidate, good day!

My name is Anna, I represent the company Company name. Our team develops IT products for our own real estate business.

We are currently looking for a developer for the stack: Vue3/Nuxt3/TypeScript.

Tasks: write and maintain the map client UI, write SSR friendly code.

The city of Moscow

Work format: from the office

I know that you have many other tasks, so you can simply answer the letter with a number:

1 – 👍 I am interested in the vacancy and need more details about it

2 – 🤔 As long as I am not interested in the offer, you can come back later

3 – 🙅 I am not interested in the offer

Andriy’s comment: I would leave the first three paragraphs, and then add a link and the question: “Are you ready to talk further?”.

Phil’s comment: I will support I don’t like being played with as a reader. How does a person know how many tasks I have?

Answering with a number seems to save time, but it does not. It takes me longer to read these sentences than to write yes or no. At the same time, the description is not bad, but there is no salary, nor the currency in which they are paid. There is no link to the job description, and all the technical details cannot be specified in the message. Send everything at once so I can evaluate and respond to the offer.

What is wrong:

1. does not save time, but rather wastes it

2. there is no salary fork

3. there is no link to the vacancy

Letter #3

Name of the candidate, hello!

I am Yana, a recruiter from Company name 😊

Looking for the coolest .NET developers.

Wanted to offer to join our powerful .NET community of 200+ developers.

Our stack: .NET 6+, ASP .NET Core, PostgreSQL/MongoDB, Kafka, ClickHouse, Docker, Kubernetes, Gitlab. We work on Scrum and Kanban.

The teams support a high development culture and a minimum of Legacy code, most programs are already in Kubernetes.

Job description: Link to the job

If you are interested, I suggest calling for more details, and I will answer your questions.

What do you think? ❤️

Andriy’s comment: The first thing that caught my eye was the word “community”. Is this a job or just an invitation to chat? It immediately alarmed me. And this “high development culture” is a cliché. How to write “communicative” in a vacancy. “Agile” and “modern working principles” are also clichés.

Phil’s comment: They write about the “coolest”. This is also dishonest flirting. I have 10 years of experience, but why do they tell me: You are the coolest. I’m not the coolest.

And here one gets the impression that the guys are looking for some developers, to which I definitely do not belong. And I will not go to talk again, because I am afraid that I will be humiliated. The second point about “coolness” – then you are waiting for some cool fork. And then you will be offered 100 thousand rubles.

Phil’s comment: Don’t be afraid to write about legacies. This is not a minus, it is just a stage of the project. Any serious project gets legacies – this is part of our work, and we don’t like it when we are not allowed to touch it. If not engaged, the codebase simply deteriorates.

What is wrong:

1. It is not clear who they are looking for, there is no logic and sequence

2. There is no fork and no grade

3. Stack: What do you use or what should I be able to do? Include the stack in the job description

Letter #4

Good day, Name of the candidate!

My name is Marina, recruitment department Company name

I found your resume on hh.ru

We have an open position related to AI, to the laboratory of new technological solutions. We are looking for a technical architect. Link: Link to the vacancy

The main task of implementation is to detect deviant behavior. There is computing in the cloud, where capacities are lined up centrally. In our case, Edge will be as close as possible to the data sources. We are looking for someone with experience in devops, ready to understand the construction of the architecture.

Are you ready to consider such a vacancy?

Andrew: I liked! It is very important to indicate where you got our contact from. For some developers, where you found it is critical.

Phil: I didn’t understand anything. There is a feeling that this piece was taken out of the tasks. Nothing is written about the expected skills and suddenly devops appears. Remember: the higher the positions, the different the expectations for them. If June is also June in Africa, then the CTO or technical lead will be different in all companies. For such positions, it is especially important to specify skills.

If you have already viewed my resume, be sure to write: “I found and looked at your resume.”

What is wrong:

1. no pay fork and no currency

2. expected skills are not prescribed

Letter #5

Name of the candidate, good day 👋

My name is Anna, I represent the company Company name.

We are a foreign IT company that is part of the NameHolding holding (business area – luxury real estate in Singapore).

We develop and implement all IT products for our holding, starting with the creation of landing pages and sites and ending with mobile applications. We have two technical offices in Tbilisi.

We are currently looking for a developer for the stack: Vue3, Nuxt3, Typescript

Work format: office

Schedule: 5/2 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m

Salary is discussed at the interview

Are you ready to discuss our offer?

Andriy’s comment: Too short a stack, no grade and no job link. Only these names of holdings frighten me – it makes the description more difficult.

Phil’s comment: It makes sense now, because people are looking for stable work. This is how the company tries to show that they are doing well, that they are a business above the Russian Federation, and that they are doing something important here. This is a company that will not bend in the next six months.

Even the salary was mentioned – not a fork, but something.

What is wrong:

1. Requirements are not specified

2. Short stack

3. There is no grade

4. There is no job link

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5 mistakes that were in almost all letters

The children managed to discuss only 5 letters, and sent us almost 30 examples. We turned them over and compiled the top 5 mistakes.

1. They do not prescribe a grade – it is not clear who they are looking for: Juna, Midla or Signor.

2. They don’t give none reference point from the salary fork — without it, there is no motivation to answer the letter.

3. Do not attach a link to the vacancy – it is difficult to put everything in a letter, which is why it is so necessary.

4. Unwritten requirements and stack – it’s hard to understand if your skills match the job description.

5. It is difficult to read: there is no structure, the meaning of the message is blurred.

It is very important to tell candidates where you found your resume. It is a big plus if you have indicated that you have familiarized yourself with it. Otherwise, why do you think the candidate is a good fit for the job?

And an even more neutral ToV without formality and unnecessary embellishment stands out among all offers.

Send examples of emails you’ve wanted to reply to, this is important because we’re teaching ChatGPT how to write good emails to developers.