LETTERS SEEKING EMPLOYMENT ALL employers of labour are agreed upon the deadly sameness of the letters they receive from applicants for situations. The most important point, therefore, in writing such a letter is to devise some opening sentence that will be sufficiently out of' the rut to attract the attention of the desired employer. In answering an advertisement in a paper, do not commence by saying " In answer to your advertisement in to-day's Daily Telegraph, I beg to offer my services for the position of book-keeper," for you can be sure that at least 90 per cent. of the other applicants will use those identical words. Your letter has probably been sent to the newspaper office, and the employer knows quite well to what advertisement it is an answer. So start right away by telling what you can do. The next thing is to read the advertisement carefully and see just what is wanted. If it says " State salary required," do so. If it says, " Enclose testimonials " be sum to do so, or rather, be sure to send copies. Never, unless expressly- required, enclose original testimonials in an application. Copies are quite as effective, and there can never be any trouble through their loss.
Finally, give full particulars of all positions held, with the reasons for leaving them, age, married or single, number of children, education, with any languages spoken or written, and all other particulars that may seem of interest. If all these particulars viould make the letter too long, write them
out in tabulated form on another sheet and send it with a quite short letter. Remember, the shorter your letter the more chance it has of being read.
There should be no need to insist on an application being written as clearly and legibly as possible on perfectly clean and high-class notepaper. If .the position offilred does not call for penmanship, and the advertisement does not say " Apply in oWn handwriting," get your application typewritten as neatly as possible. It will be much easier to read, and the employer will be glad of that if he has many answers.
All these remarks apply equally strongly to letters not in uanswer to an advertisement, but sent on the chance of a firm having a position vacant.
Government and other official positions are, as a rule, subject to special conditions, ar,d should be set out in special forms, with testhnonials and names of references, etc., as will be seen by the specimens at the end of this section. Applications for such situatigns generally require much fuller particulars than do ordinary business situations.