When applying for a job, conventional wisdom has it that one must write a kick-ass cover letter, should one actually want to get hired. This is especially important for people, like myself, whose resumes do not immediately indicate how they might be qualified or why they'd even want the job.
So I need to write a cover letter. What follows is the cover letter I want to write. I doubt it's the cover letter I will write, since one must follow convention, even when one is, by applying to that job in the first place, punching convention in the face. Thus, this particular cover letter will remain here, in its virtual home, in the vain hope that someone with a job might stumble across it and take pity on the poor fool who wrote it.
It could happen, right? Sure... Anyway, the letter.
March 11, 2009
Dear Really Important Hiring Person at the Coolest TV Show on the Planet,
HIRE ME!!!
Please, please, please, please, please, please, please! Pretty please! With cream and sugar on top! Please, I beg of you! Don't let my lofty dreams crumble into dust!
What do I bring to the table of your show? Creativity! Dedication! Loads of skills! Punctuality! Enthusiasm! (Unless that irritates you, in which case I can totally tone it down. Just delete all those exclamations and we're good.)
Thing is, you should hire me. Yes, I have a skill-set not immediately applicable to the television industry. Yes, that skill-set indicates that, even if it were applicable to the television industry, I'd be way over-qualified.
But it's not. And I'm not.
I could totally do the television thing. All of that serious historical research into medieval Arabic texts and the star knowledge of Tunisian fisherman? Transferable! Just substitute "your show's production needs" for "medieval Arabic texts." And "applicable background research" for "star knowledge." And "awesome producer-types" for "Tunisian fishermen." Oh, and drop the "historical" altogether, OK? It could work!
As for the over-qualified thing, I'm not. I'm so not. Seriously not. I mean, I've been a grad student for the past 6 years. Before that, I was in the Peace Corps. We're talking glorified slave-labor here. How would that over-qualify me for anything? And, if we're going to be honest, I'd do pretty much anything to work on your show. Get coffee. Run photocopies. Shine your shoes (actually this last one isn't such a good idea -- I'm guessing that the tragic, yet hilarious, mishap that would befall your shoes within mere seconds of me being handed the polish would result in my termination). What I'm saying here is that you really don't have a job that's beneath me.
So hire me, OK? Like now. Or soon. Because I need a job. And you need me. Honestly.
In Desperation,
Laurel Brown
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