Checking Suspected E-Mails

[Rick Chadderdon]

Matt Kettler wrote:
> Kaplan, Andrew H. wrote:
>   
>> Hi there --
>>
>> I sent a request to the user receiving the resumes to have the send resubmit
>> them in plain text format. That should, hopefully, take care of the issue. 
>>     
>
> Yes, but you might not want to do that if the person you're recruiting (the
> sender) is technical.
>
> I know I for one would have a negative impression of the technical capacity of
> the company if I received such a request if the original was truly innocuous and
> not anything a reasonable person would consider questionable.
>
> I know my own angles on such things are harsher than most, but do consider the
> kind of impression you're creating with such things.
>
> In this case, you may not want to hire someone so opinionated, so that might be
> perfectly fine. I'm simply advising that the "resend as text please" may create
> a negative impression you might not wish to convey to potential customers,
> partners or recruits. Be aware of it, consider it, and establish your policies
> accordingly.
It's interesting how different one person's view of "reasonable" can be
from another's.  I consider myself perfectly reasonable, but I find it
annoying when people send me resumes in formats other than plain text. 
Anything else is making a (usually) unwarranted assumption about the
receiver.  Of course, I certainly wouldn't expect anybody to want to
work for me if they found my way of thinking to be unreasonable. nor
would I hire them if I felt we were incompatible, so I guess this is
just a long way of agreeing with you.

I guess it doesn't matter what format you request when receiving
documents, there will be someone who judges you based on that request. 
I wouldn't even apply for a job if the advert said, "Please attach
resume in Microsoft Word format," even though I am perfectly capable of
producing such a document.  Bad impression.  Would either myself or the
potential employer really lose out?  No, we're almost certainly going to
be a bad match.  One of the reasons I'm self-employed, I guess.  :)

To bring this back onto topic:  Andrew's original problem wasn't the
format of the resume, it was the fact that the filename of the resume
contained a CLSID string.  If someone sent me a resume with the filename
"TIBOR_BERNER{3EDC67F9-93A4-42C3-AEC1-502D90D9A895}.html", I would be
likely to delete it unread, even if it did make it past MailScanner.

Rick