APPLY BY LETTER

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 47, 21 November 1907, Page 37

APPLY BY LETTER

This is_ what happened to seventy-five responses to an advertisement for an office boy, writes a contributor to the ' Youth's Companion.' The man who advertised was a New York city banker. He thought he could select the boy needed in his office by examining the written and the references given. When the seventy-five answers came, he first tossed .the twenty postal cards unread into the waste-basket. 'This job,' he said, 'is worth more than a postal card to the boy who gets it.' Of the fifty-five remaining letters, twelve had evidently been hXirriedly scribbled in the office of the newspaper which printed the advertisement. . All twelve followed the postals into the basket. There remained forty-three. The first test to which these were put was that of penmanship. Eighteen were disqualified on that score. The remarks of the banker as he rejected the eighteen were illuminating. 1 An office boy must write a plain, easily readable hand. Only a genius can adopt bad penmanship as a mark of his individuality.' Faulty spelling barred ten more of the applicants. -'Business men,' said the banker, 'must adhere to the kind of spelling found in dictionaries. They cannot countenance or -promote reforms, much needed as they may be, in their business correspondence.'.

Four letters were not considejed because the writers had worded them like telegrams. One of these said : 1 Just saw your ad. Offer my services. Am eighteen. Can call to-morrow.' He was not invited to cjlLI, for although economy is a virtue worth practising, it is misplaced when applied to words in an application for a position. Suchi a note is discourteous. The advertisement called, for two references. In only three letters whioh passed the other tests had this requirement been remembered, so the selection narrowed itself down to these. Of the three, writers, only one showed that he understood something of typewriting. He had been graduated from the grammar school, had taken up commercial ,work in an~ evening school, and had rented a typewriting machine, so as to fit himself for office work. This boy received a notice to appear at the banker's office.