My employer has decided in recent times to ditch the traditional government job application method of addressing a large number of key selection criteria in favour of a two page summary of the applicant's work experience and how it is relevant to the job being applied for.
At first impression, this sounds pretty good, but when you have (or think you have) lots of experience, it can be challenging to condense it all into two pages of summary.
What to do about this problem, I hear you ask? Well, one of the applicants for this job has been very creative. They've used the ampersand sign (&) instead of the word "and" every single time the word comes up in their application. It seems like there are hundreds of them in the two pages.
And prior to or post every single ampersand, they've omitted to use the space bar.
And they've used single line spacing and the smallest possible font size they can get away with. If it was any smaller, I'd need a magnifying glass to read it.
They also have an annoying habit of writing incredibly long sentences. Think paragraph length (4-5 lines at least) for every sentence.
I hate long sentences. Short sentences work. They get the message across. See?
I have to do some written notes on each application as part of the shortlisting process. But I think I'll have to find something more constructive to say than "overuse of &" and "underuse of space bar."
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