How to not get hired.

Below are some cold openings for emails and messages that have completely failed to work for me and might also never work for you.

Hey _______! Congratulations! I saw the exciting news that you (got promoted /won/were awarded) ________! Super exciting! I (was/ran/won - relevant experience here) and learned a lot of things the hard way to learn things. Let me know if there anything I can do to spare you and your team the hard part and get to the fun stuff with ________.

I saw the fucking great news about ________ and was insanely jealous. I’m embarrassed to say that I’m a ridiculously huge fan of your teams work and would love to help you out with something before my next americanexpress bill is due, which is like two weeks.

I’m 100% not stalking you but I saw that you're moving to a new role in _____ city. I recently moved there too and here’s what I’ve discovered (link to personal blog post that 3 people have seen). Maybe we could meet for a drink at a local ________. My treat even though I’m jobless and poor right now and you should probably just cover because we're friends now, right.

I know that I’ve openly blamed you for pushing me out of the organization that you were deeply politically involved in, but on the dozen projects we did together, that were mostly my ideas, we did good work and even enjoyed each other’s company. Want to hire me for some freelance?

Hey remember all those awards I helped your agency win. Want to win some more? I do! Or not, I'm not always all about the awards, I'm about what's good for the agency. I can do other stuff that doesn't win awards if not winning awards is what makes people happy. I mean being happy is like its own award.

Hey remember all that business I helped your agency win, let’s go get more?

Please! For the love of God! I haven’t worked since November! Do you have any idea how expensive that Hulu/Disney+ package is now that I’m past the introductory rate period? I can’t even afford to upgrade my Amazon Prime and now I have to watch the same fucking 5 Amazon Ads over and over. Also, my insurance is like $3000 a month, which is probably more important but seems somehow less urgent.

I’ll do anything. I’ll even enthusiastically write powerfully moving brand manifestos for ethically bankrupt businesses who may have intentionally caused global climate change, childhood obesity, human trafficking, ongoing genocide, and body shaming.

I’m available.

I miss you.

Why don’t you love me? I can change. Please write me back.