
This is going to make me feel and sound a lot older than I am. But, I think the majority of people have forgotten, or if you are younger, never been taught how to write a letter. Correctly. Where to pop your name, your address, the recipients name and address - and heavens above, how to sign it off! Now it's all Best Regards and the likes....what happened to faithfully and sincerely?
The reason I bring this up now is that I received a letter today from a chap who was keen to get into 'advertising' Nothing too odd there, but it was the style and content of this letter that left me feeling rather let down. When I was trying to get my first job, and on direction was asked to write in I made sure it was eye-catching, relevant and left them wanting to at least invite me in.
I think nowadays, people have become lazier (symptomatic of the advances in technology) and because everything is available (and expected) instantly less time and thought goes into some very important communications.
I'm glad I don't have to worry about ruler widths and blotting paper, but no matter what you write, it has got to have had some thought go into it - otherwise, it'll invariably disappear into my waste bin, as quickly as it arrived.
oooh I couldn't agree more. Why doesn't anyone post CVs any more? I remember getting an art director friend of mine to do me a proper logo for my name and a beautiful header and everything when I was trying to get into advertising. Also I made sure every word and sentence was perfect with no spelling errors (but that's another blog post altogether!)
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely agree - I've even received email applications going to great lengths to say why the applicant would be an asset to WFCA. My response was to suggest they approached them in that case.
ReplyDeleteDo you know what, you might find this hard to believe but when I write with my fountain pen (cost £375 for my 50th) actually makes me want to write better! No delete buttons, no spell checks, just your own pure, grammatical and literal skills. if everyone had to write a letter by hand they would understand that writing is an art as well as an expression of thought.
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