Proof Read My Cover Letter please

[Saberu]

Dear Employer,

I saw your job advert for web developer in [city] and realised I would be perfect for the role. I am a web developer by trade and have a portfolio of websites for you to look at. I am also an expert at Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which is a rare skill as you may know and even though many people know the basics, there is a lot of knowledge to learn for powerful internet marketing techniques which I am happy to share with your company.

Here is my web design service site with my portfolio which makes good use of MySQL, Apache, HTML, CSS, PHP, Flash and Javascript. I have my contact number in the top right corner so you can verify it as my site-
http://www.x.com/

For a more extensive example of where I have used Javascript I have this site-
http://www.x.com/

The Javascript can be found here, http://www.x.com/x.js.

All of my websites are fully self coded and have not used any content management systems or templates. I also know how to design and code animated content in Flash.

I am competent with Photoshop as I use it for logos and template design. I can't say I've used Indesign before but from looking at it I can see it's just a fancy version of Photoshop with added support for document templates so should not be difficult to pickup.

My SEO skills didn't reach their full potential until the last few months so I can't give as good examples as I would like to, but here is my original lyrics website (if you'll excuse the bad design) which gets 800-900 visitors/ day consistently.
http://www.x.net/

I also like to think I am very good at systemising and strategising as these are the interests which originally got me into doing SEO and online marketing. To top it off my English language skills should be more than adequate to provide a high quality level of content for web pages.

I hope your company will give me the oppurtunity to join your successful team and prove my skills and teamworking ability.

Yours Sincerely,

[name]

----

I realise there are probably a hundred mistakes and I mentioned I have good English skills (which is generally true of spelling but I suck at grammar). I'm not too good at knowing when I'm allowed an s instead of a z as I tend to prefer using s so may be some spelling mistakes too, and any other things which seem strange feel free to point out. Thanks.

 

[Saberu]

I'd say that's far too colloquial for a job application.



If I were an employer and I read that, your application would be going straight in the bin. I reckon you need to make it a bit more formal, to show that you're taking the job seriously!

Too colloquial? I'm not talking to the Queen I'm sure he/she will appreciate my honesty and down to earth attitude

healy97 thanks for the comment regarding my use of perfect, I agree with you it sounds a little arrogant and may make him/her dislike me.

 

[Saberu]

Sorry I already sent it...damn wish I had spell checker, stupid wordpad

 

[Saberu]

Well I sent it after the first few replies, after all those people checked it without noticing the spelling error I assumed it was ok to send. Then just after I sent it someone pointed out the error, oh well. I fail at life, I know.

 

[Saberu]

I would never submit that and if it landed on my desk you wouldn't get an interview, it's poorly written far to casual and you sound incredibly arogant.

Oh dear it seems I should commit suicide, I must be awful. Or perhaps you guys are just incredibly judgemental.

Either way if this is the level of perfection I need to have with grammar just to get my foot in the door then I'd rather work in a supermarket. I find it hard to believe the job market is that competitive that people dare not act casual or speak highly of themselves out of fear of looking arrogant.

It's not like I'm trying to get a job as a journalist. I appreciate the constructive replies in this thread but some of you just sound like you have your head up your arse, god help me if the employer has a similar attitude.

Sure I made a spelling error too but my skill is web design, not English language, and that's what the main job role is so I'm not going to worry about it. Besides it may as well have been a typo than a spelling error.

 

[Saberu]

Oh dear..

1st thing that stood out to me (after the fact it was 2-3x too long) was your glaring announcement of your 'expert SEO skills', which you later describe as:

I was using that to qualify why my SEO on the example site wasn't as good as I can really acheive. Hopefully my SEO skills will make me stand out regardless of my poor grammar/ spelling. If not then it's their loss not mine.

I know I'm more than good enough for this role, and I'm not going to care too much about not getting it. If anyone thinks that sounds arrogant, they can swivel.


Sounds to me like British society seems to have evolved to a point where people are judged based on vain self-marketing skills as opposed to real skills, and this thread highlights that well.

 

[Saberu]

The big error for me is the Indesign comment.

Photoshop clone with templating functions, and other functions which make it a more powerful word processor than Photoshop. That is ALL it is, my description wasn't so wildly innacurate.

I haven't actually used the software, but that picture and reading Wikipedia was more than enough to see what it's all about.

 

[Saberu]

It's one position for which maybe 200+ people will apply for, why do you deserve it?

I think it's more likely that there will be around 20-30 people applying with perhaps a handful of those actually having the relevant skills and none of them having SEO skills.

The job is with a recruitment agency so I imagine they will be more forgiving than most places as they deal with recruitment all the time so would be smart enough to look past the surface qualities of an applicant.

I deserve it because I have the skills, if they turn me down for not being professional enough in my cover letter it's their loss. That's my philosophy and if it means I'll never get a decent job then I'll just stay self employed and make it my own way without being judged harshly on irrelevant points.

as for uvmain's comment, I am grateful for the constructive criticism, my gripe was with the few people just telling me I'm arrogant in the letter which is IMO false and unsubstantiated, not to mention rude.

 

[Saberu]

*Edit - ROFL the fact that you think you can grasp what a program is and what its for by reading wikipedia and looking at a template is quite frankly an insult. You are so utterly wrong about this its laughable.

If I'm so wrong would you care to explain exactly what makes Indesign different from how I described it? If you are going to make an accusation you should at least back it up with something more than opinion.

 

[Saberu]

Just a heads up, but on my secondary monitor at work, I have firefox windowed. I reckon it's width is ~1000px.

At this width, the lyrics site in your link is half-covered by the flash advert to the left.

Do you have Javascript disabled? I used it to give a more exact placement of the advert in that website, I made it before I was any good at design so it's a bit hacky. These days I'd lay out the site better and just use css/centering.

 

[Saberu]

You could have gone back and tweaked your existing work rather than say "I used to be crap, but now I'm great. Take my word for it." There are no actual examples that show the level of competence you claim.

I know the site in my sig is rubbish, the ones in the letter aren't. But I'm not going to show them here, because a lot of people here are perfectionists and would denounce it even if it was averagely good just because it wasn't amazing and would go on to say I don't deserve the job.

All I wanted was some comments on my cover letter, I was glad to get them as it showed the various mistakes with grammar and spelling but I strongly disagree with people saying my letter comes across arrogant and certainly don't think it's too coloquial.

If I disagree with a suggestion it doesn't mean I'm being a dick it just means I disagree. I did infact agree with some of the comments in the thread and they are right about the grammar not being that good.

I admit I didn't spend much time on it, it could have been much better but I'm just not used to having to impress people so much from one letter as this is the first full time job in the UK I've ever applied for. I'm starting to get it now that my view is not similar to the general consensus of what makes a good letter so I'll either learn to write a better one or just stay self employed.

Anyway I think overall some of the people in this thread were a little harsh and that my letter isn't infact as arrogant as they say.