Sports Editors: Email applications vs. Hard Copy?

1. Ask for five or six in the job posting.

2. If you can't handle Word or Acrobat, this is probably not a paper I want to work for anyway.

4. Get Gmail.

 

Amen, amen, amen. I never had a problem with those who sent e-mail or attachments, however, I did like those that took the time to send the actual hard copy. It indicated a sense of professionalism I wanted to see. As well, I think even the densest out there know e-mail is not fail-safe. And a problem on your end because you sent an e-mail attachment that doesn't open on my end does not constitute an emergency on my part. If you've ever sat in the chair, you get what this guy said. If you haven't sat in the chair, you may, but you may not. Prior to my time in the chair, I used to wonder why SE's seemed to not have a lot of time for me, even when I worked for them as a staffer. Now I know why. Too many things that need to be done without having to worry that "Oh, my gosh, I don't have the right computer program to open this candidate's job app!!! Oh my gosh! What to do?" Sorry, you move on to the next one, because you only have a hundred other emails relating to the job opening, plus everything else in your department or at your workplace to sift through, plus phone messages, meetings, parent calls, uh, you SE's out there know what I mean.

 

I could be wrong, but you don't sound like you want this job very much.

 

or at all.

 

No, probably not. But I've got a good job and am not currently looking. Not everyone is in such a position.

I'm just sticking up for the young person applying for $25k jobs who would rather use this wondrous modern technology we call electronic mail than spend the afternoon at Kinkos.

 

Fixed.

 

Um, I have a copier/printer in one thing that cost probably $50. It copies in color, and it scans items in then prints them rather than straight copies. Looks WAY better.

Make an investment, folks, and you won't have to go to Kinko's ever again.

 

I never had any problems at Kinko's. I just went right in and they copied them right on the spot for me. Maybe the Kinko's where I used to live was a little bit lax compared to the others.

 

I much prefer e-mail. It's faster and easy for me to organize. Since the vast majority of my submissions come via e-mail I sometimes almost forget about the few hard copy applications that I do get.

 

Do whatever the job posting asks for, if it specifies one format or another. But that being said, this is a good point. We're not talking about high-tech computer skills here. It's e-mail and PDFs, the most basic of tools in every other line of business.

A couple other points:

1). The concerns about file size: I don't know about anybody else, but how many clips are you trying to cram into a PDF if it's anything bigger than 5 MB? Heck, I'm a designer and I have 30-page design sample package loaded with graphics that's only 10MB. If we're talking about 5 or 6 simple scans or even some plain text, then 5MBs is plenty. And BTW, 5 MB might've been a big file in 1991, but it's absolutely nothing in this day and age.

2). Sending hard copy isn't any more reliable than e-mailing attachments. The package could be lost, or get wet, or a million other things. There's just as much a chance of it being ruined as an attachment being corrupted. The only difference is an e-mail gets to the recipient in seconds instead of days, so you'd know much quicker if something went wrong.

3). I find it funny that some are suggesting that sending hard copy is a sign of greater professionalism. It can take just as much effort to prepare a good, organized electronic portfolio as it does a hard copy one. And if you're trying to infer so much about the applicant merely by the format of their clips, you could also conclude that someone who submits electronically:
-- Is more comfortable with technology than someone who still sends hard copies, and thus less likely to lose it anytime the computer has a hiccup.
-- Knows how to find ways to get things more efficiently. After all, he did put together a file that takes him seconds to send as opposed someone who spends a hour every time he has to put together an application package.
Too far a stretch to draw those conclusions just from a PDF? Probably. But no more so than assuming someone is more professional or wants a job more simply because they used snail mail.

Yes, it's the editors' time that's being spent, and thus their preference as to the format. All I'm saying is: Get with the times. Would you still ask someone trying to contact you to send you snail mail instead of e-mail? Obviously not. So why set up some silly double standard for job applicants.

 

Good points, zulu. With one exception:

I don't know about you, but my work's e-mail server -- which is vastly inferior to my personal e-mail account -- can't handle more than two messages over 1MB in my inbox at the same time. It's a POS server, yes. But that's what we have.

5MB isn't a big file, on the surface. And I can handle plenty of them with my personal e-mail. But my e-mail account would blow up at work if I had to sift through even a dozen job applications with PDFs of that size attached.

Thus, it's not so much that editors "can't figure it out" as it is the POS technology that some of us have to work with.

 

I've started to e-mail clips, instead of snail mail, unless they ask for design clips or the job sounds like there will be a lot of design.
Speed can be the difference and e-mail is immediate. I had a friend e-mail his material for a job a few hours after the ad was posted on a Thursday. Later that day he was contacted by the editor saying he had a phone interview the next day. By the end of Friday he had arrangements to go there for an in person interview. I also saw the ad the day it was posted, but sent my stuff via next day delivery snail mail on Friday. I was never contacted by the paper, but my friend said they really liked my stuff. He got the job, so I'm happy, but there is part of me that wonders if things might have been different if I e-mailed my stuff immediately, like my friend.