On hiring, first impressions from the other side

I just finished a round of hiring for the first time! Here are things I personally have learned, for those of you applying for jobs. Keep in mind that since my team is so small and we have no money for recruiters, I was the one doing resume screens, phone screens, and panel interviews, and these are things that jumped out at me seeing this from the other side for the first time.

• Cover letters are nice but most of them are far too long! 😅 Just 1-2 paragraphs, please.
• Have some experience on your resume that’s at least somewhat congruent with what the job description asks for. I got a lot of graphic design and branding resumes (and a few memorable YouTuber and TV producer resumes), when we were looking for someone who focuses on content strategy and content design.
• Years of experience don’t always matter (unfortunately in government they matter). But if we’re asking for 2+ years of experience working with stakeholders, someone right out of college is not going to pass the resume screen.
• Do not show weak stuff in the field you’re applying for. If we’re asking for someone who writes well, we WILL NOT pass anyone with typos ANYWHERE. Sorry, but that’s a nonstarter. It is absolutely shocking how people with good experience we had to reject because they had too many typos. (Yes, more than 1!) We just can’t send those people out to our stakeholders if they’re this careless.
• Focus on your strengths (i.e. “do not show weak stuff at all, part deux”). You sometimes don’t know who will be on a panel interview. The job we were hiring for is not strictly visual design, but the design director was on these panel interviews. If you show us your bad visual design in hopes of impressing us with your scope of (vast but mediocre) abilities….that’s still a no. Again, we can’t send those people out to our stakeholders if they show bad judgement in what to focus on.
• Related, but stick to a narrative and don’t meander. This wasn’t as much as a problem for us (since we’re content and people generally know how to communicate) but some coworkers interviewing for dev roles would get people who would go off on a tangent for 10+ minutes on the phone screen! Immediate reject—our time is precious and we can’t dawdle during meetings.
• Know what’s important to the org you’re applying for. If anyone did any research of my team, it would be clear that accessibility is SUPER important to us. Therefore, mention it as important to you, or at least that you’re aware of it. And do not show work that has poor color contrast (i.e. poor accessibility). And choose your case studies carefully. Super capitalist/corporate/anti-environment case studies were very awkward to sit through! 😅