A recent message from an EFA Job List client highlighted a number of concerns raised by responses to her posting for an editor.

“… The biggest problem,” said the client, was “people responding who either didn’t understand what I was looking for, didn’t have any experience doing what I was looking for, or who just sent boilerplate responses.”

Here are some things not to do when you respond to a Job List opportunity, or any other job posting you might consider worth applying for.

• Misspell the client’s name or use the generic greeting “Dear Sir or • Madam” even though the client’s name is in the listing.
• Instead of providing what the client asks for in a cover note, direct attention to a website or résumé and assume the client would go to the trouble to ferret out the needed information.
• Go on (and on and on and on) about irrelevant experience.
• Provide a low-ball estimate, which can make the client think the freelancer is inexperienced or will produce superficial work.
• Disregard a specific request for the freelancer to be based in the USA or a native speaker of English.
• Send what might look like a boiler- plate (generic) response that does not actually respond to what the client is looking for.
• Draft your response in big blocks of text with no paragraph breaks.
• Make typographical, grammar, punctuation and other errors in your response.
• Respond or apply even though you are not qualified for the project.

By Ruth E. Thaler-Carter

This article first appeared in the Freelancer September–October 2016