A friend of mine received an invitation to interview at a company. She was interested in the opportunity until she received the error-filled message below from the training manager. I have changed details to protect the guilty.
Thank you for your interested in our Training Design Specialist Position. We would like you to come to the office for a short interview as a first step in our interviewing process. We would like you to bring in two samples of a work product that your produced. The topic should be on an area where you had to use a subject matter expert to learn the content. You then needed create a curriculum and related materials. It should be adult learning; face to face and non-academic in nature.
We would like to review your samples and then have a short interview. You will be meeting with John Baskins and myself. You should plan for 30 to 45 minutes.
If possible, would you be available next Wednesday; Feb 19th at 11. The next window that we have available would be the morning of Wednesday; Feb 26th.
Let me know if you have any questions. Look forward to hearing from you.
Penelope
Would you work for Penelope, whose writing was riddled with about ten errors (depending on how you count them)? Granted, she included all the necessary information, and her tone was professional.
The message turned off my friend, who already has a job but was interested in exploring options. She decided to decline the interview.
Below is a corrected version of the message, so you can be sure you noted all the errors. Some of the errors were more glaring than others, but they were still errors.
Thank you for your interest in our Training Design Specialist position. We would like you to come to the office for a short interview as a first step in our interviewing process. We would like you to bring in two samples of a work product that you produced. The topic should be on an area where you had to use a subject matter expert to learn the content. You then needed to create a curriculum and related materials. It should be adult learning, face to face and nonacademic in nature.
We would like to review your samples and then have a short interview. You will be meeting with John Baskins and me. You should plan for 30 to 45 minutes.
If possible, would you be available next Wednesday, Feb. 19, at 11? The next window that we have available would be the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 26.
Let me know if you have any questions. I [more professional] look forward to hearing from you.
Penelope
What is your reaction to this message? Is my friend too fussy, or does she recognize a lack of professionalism when she sees it?
Find out about our online courses, including Proofread Like a Pro and Punctuation for Professionals.
Lynn