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A noun that is formed from a verb and which describes an action. In English it ends in -ing, eg 'the baking of bread' and 'Smoking damages your health'.

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An Unfornate Postition

Capitalisation, Punctuation, Rants, Typos, grammar

Posted by Tom on 12th January, 2009

My job sometimes requires me to conduct job interviews. This means that, as part of the process of recruiting new staff, I frequently have to deal with recruitment agencies.

Now we must be clear on one thing: this blog is not the place for me to rant about the efficacy, diligence, intelligence and insight shown by the aforementioned vultures companies. So I won’t comment on the following email I received this morning – apropos of nothing and addressed to nobody – from Reed recruitment.

In recruitment, good communication is crucial

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13 Comments »

1. My favourite job-seeker faux pas was the cover letter I once saw that said ‘I am writing to apply for the position of hostile worker’.

   Now that’s a job I want.

   Comment by sars — 12th January, 2009 @ 1:49 pm

2. This is such a shame. The applicant really isn’t getting the service he or she should expect.

   Surely this is enough to warrant a place for Reed on The List of GrammarFiends.

   Comment by Gez — 12th January, 2009 @ 1:56 pm

3. I’m with Gez. One can only hope the appplicant had an opportunity to review the letter (doubt it, unfortunately) because he or she will certainly suffer the consequences.

   Comment by tim maguire — 12th January, 2009 @ 6:19 pm

4. I once applied for a job on the Irish Medical Times and referred to it as the ‘Irish Medial Times’ in my covering letter. That was quite an achievement.

   Comment by JD — 13th January, 2009 @ 9:56 pm

5. Did you get the job, JD?

   Comment by Gez — 15th January, 2009 @ 1:10 pm

6. I actually work for Reed and I’m shocked to see the lack of effort put into the above email. I know that if I was to send this to any of my clients it would be reason enough for them to discard the email without even opening my candidate’s CV.

   Comment by weetv — 24th February, 2009 @ 12:27 pm

7. weetv: Is it customary at Reed to shout at potential employers?

   I quite like “postition”, combining “post” and “position”. With a little effort, working together, we should be able to drive it into common usage, along with its compadranion word “postitution”.

   Comment by Nathan Myers — 24th February, 2009 @ 11:51 pm

8. [...] Laughs, epic fails (so it’s not about freelancing — it’s still fun) Read – “An Unfortunate ‘Postition’ ” by [...]

   Pingback by 40 Freelance Writing Blogs | Freelancing and Outsourcing Tips, Commentary, Analysis, and News from oDesk — 31st August, 2009 @ 10:05 pm

9. just be careful with some recruitmet agencies because some of them are scammers too ~

   Comment by Water Cooler : — 30th October, 2010 @ 7:50 pm

10. you should always be careful with recruitment agencies because some of them are just scammers “-`

    Comment by Candy Paint — 18th November, 2010 @ 10:53 am

11. More people need to read this and understand this aspect of the story. I cant believe you’re not more popular.

    Comment by flavored coffee — 8th August, 2011 @ 10:56 pm

12. Howdy! I just wish to give an enormous thumbs up for the nice information you will have here on this post. I will be coming back to your weblog for extra soon.

    Comment by spider — 27th August, 2011 @ 11:10 am

13. Great post Andy, thanks for sharing. Looking forward to reading more of your writing in future.

    Andy

    Comment by Andy — 15th September, 2011 @ 4:48 pm

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