Assistants Anonymous: What Hiring Interns Taught Me About Applying for Assistant Jobs

Assistants Anonymous: a column for the thoughts you want to share but don't want to put your name on. Submit HERE. 

By Anonymous Management Assistant

I currently work as an assistant at a management company, but before that, I was unemployed for a full year after graduating college. I was so confused as to why I wasn’t getting hired! I was so qualified. I did well in school, I had great internships, and I worked hard. 

Eventually, I did get hired (through a college connection), but it wasn’t until this past summer, when I was asked to help hire interns, that I understood why I had been unemployed for so long. 

Here are some things I learned from hiring interns that I wish I knew when I was looking for my first assistant job. 

Note: This is my personal opinion as a gen Z assistant who has hired interns, not as a career HR person or hiring manager. 

1. It’s not that hiring managers don’t care enough to read your resume carefully. It’s that they don’t have time to.

We got hundreds of applications, and we had less than a month to comb through all of them and fill 3 spots. It’s not like my job was just to hire interns - I was also an assistant, and I had a whole separate job to do. I was scanning resumes quickly, taking maybe 30 seconds each and skimming cover letters. The whole time, I felt really guilty. I remembered how much care and effort I put into crafting the perfect resume and writing the perfect cover letter tailored to each specific company, and how upset I used to be when I suspected hiring managers weren’t paying enough attention. But what was I supposed to do? There’s only so much time.

2. Industry connections are a way to stand out, but not the only way to stand out. 

The #1 reason I took an extra minute to read a resume is because something made them stand out outside of their application. Here are some ways people stood out. 

Recommendations (which can sometimes be considered nepotism, but shouldn’t always be considered nepotism). 

• If a friend or colleague forwarded me someone’s resume (their friend, sibling, someone they met with one time, etc.), I would take an extra look, not just to do them a favor, but because I trust their judgement. It actually felt like they were helping me in some ways. When there’s such a high volume of applicants, input of people I trust is always welcome. 

Cold (respectful) reach-outs.

• If a student reached out to me on LinkedIn or over email respectfully (for advice, usually. Nobody assumed I was part of the hiring process), I would be impressed that they took the initiative. 

Informational meetings.

• If I met with someone (from a cold reach-out, from meeting them at a networking event, from someone who connected me to them), and they impressed me in our conversation, that would make them stand out even more. 

Something fun on a resume. When you’re looking at a lot of resumes, it can get a little tedious. If you can make me smile, I like you. 

• I like when people include things that aren’t related to the job they’re applying to. If someone had something cool in their special skills, or if they were in an interesting non-entertainment club in college, I took note. 

• One person had a section under “skills” for their favorite TV show. I thought that was particularly creative.

• I also really liked fun names/headings on resumes and cover letters. Not a unique resume format, but a different color or font for your name at the top of the page and/or resume headers, or matching trim along the margins. Something to add a little personality without being unprofessional. 

If we have something in common.

• Like I mentioned above - It was a mistake for me to leave things off my resume if they weren’t related to the job I was applying to. If I saw that someone played the same sport I did, or had the same hobbies as me, I would pay more attention. Adding a few things about yourself that make you unique will make people more likely to realize what they have in common with you. 

3. Some things that made me NOT want to hire someone: 

Arrogance.

• As someone who was applying for jobs less than a year ago, I know writing a cover letter is a fine line between bragging and modesty. You don’t want to downplay your accomplishments, but you don’t want to seem like you know everything already and have nothing to learn. An intern is there to learn. (So is an assistant, or else it’s not a job worth having anyway). If someone is going to directly report to me, I want them to listen to what I have to say and not think they know better than me. 

Cluttered Resume.

• When I was applying for jobs, I always wanted to include as much information as possible on my resume so whoever was reading it didn’t miss anything. What I didn’t consider, is that what's most important is that it’s easy to skim. You can include all the information in the world that will make someone want to hire you, but it doesn’t matter if they’re not going to read it. Better to be more selective with what you include on your resume.

• My resume was way too cluttered, and it was hard to cut down to even that. If I apply for jobs again, this might be what I struggle with the most.

Bad resume formats.

• Some things I disliked specifically:

  • The resumes that have some information on a column on the left or right. They made it harder to skim. 

  • Interesting fonts. Stick with something standard. 

  • Incorrect spelling or grammar.

  • Graphics and images, especially headshots. 

• The Harvard resume format was always the most readable one. 

4. Some things I thought hiring managers would care about, but I didn’t:

If I didn’t fit all of the requirements.

• Personally, I thought it was cool when applicants were bold enough to apply when they didn’t fit all the requirements (as long as they seemed like they could do the job well). 

• The job was only open to juniors and seniors, but there was one sophomore who applied who stood out. In her cover letter, she acknowledged that she read the listing, but explained why she should be hired anyway. I liked the confidence, especially since she didn’t come across as arrogant. 

GPA

• I didn’t care as much about Dean’s List or GPA as I thought people would when I was applying to jobs myself. I thought my 3.9 GPA made me stand out, but it wasn’t nearly as relevant as everything else.

Links on resumes

• When I applied for jobs, I included a lot of links, which a lot of internship applicants did too. When going through those resumes and cover letters, I didn’t click any links (except for people who made the final round). This is because I printed out the resumes instead of reading them on my computer. I don’t think it’s bad to include links, but I think people should rely on them less. It’s better to assume they will not be clicked, but hope that they are. 

IN CONCLUSION: Why I think it took me so long to get hired:

(other than the current state of the entertainment industry)

• I thought I just had to apply for jobs, and people would see my resume and cover letter and realize how qualified I am and hire me. I didn’t realize I should make myself stand out some other way too. 

• My resume was cluttered and difficult to skim, so hiring managers didn’t read as much of it. 

• I might’ve come across as a little too arrogant in my cover letters - more like I thought I knew everything, and less like I had a lot to learn (even though that’s not how I am in real life). I wanted to prove myself as qualified too much.

• My resume was boring. I think I’m a pretty interesting person with a lot of hobbies outside of work, but my resume made me seem like I only did work and didn’t have a personality. 

• I resigned myself to the idea that people with nepotism had a better chance of being hired. (True - but not helpful). I would have been happier throughout the application process (and more successful) if I was less internally negative. I should’ve spent more time coming up with creative ways to compensate for my lack of industry connections.