

A creative cover letter from a hacker to the Chicago Tribune - conesus
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/10404-chris-kick-ass-cover-letter.html

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japherwocky
So I don't suppose anyone knows what the outcome was? Did he get an interview
at least?

Post-GOOG Edit: <http://twitter.com/#!/onyxfish> says, "Happy you all are
enjoying it--even more happy it got me the job!"

~~~
unwind
If you click the last of the weird (and, imo, quite visually displeasing)
yellow tab thingies, close to the scribbled-over piece of text, it says _"You
didn't think we'd give away our teammate's contact info so easily! [...]"_.

I interpreted this to mean that the guy who wrote the letter got hired by the
ones who received it.

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mtigas
“If you are not a hacker then you probably aren’t going to enjoy the rest of
this letter any more than the first paragraph.”

I love this. _I want a hacker-friendly environment and you need a hacker. If
you understand any of this, let’s get together._

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malandrew
Anyone have the original job ad? I'm curious.

~~~
tysone
Here are two recent job postings from the News Apps team at the Chicago
Tribune:

[http://blog.apps.chicagotribune.com/2009/09/09/hacker-
wanted...](http://blog.apps.chicagotribune.com/2009/09/09/hacker-wanted-code-
in-the-public-interest-save-journalism-in-sunny-chicago-illinois/)

[http://blog.apps.chicagotribune.com/2009/12/24/were-
hiring-a...](http://blog.apps.chicagotribune.com/2009/12/24/were-hiring-a-
uxia-expert-and-a-web-designerdeveloper/)

~~~
staringmonkey
I'm the hacker in question and its the former ad I replied to. And yes, I'm
quite gainfully and meaningfully employed with the Tribune. And no, I'm not
full of shit (at least I wasn't on that occasion.) Glad folks are
enjoying/inspired by it.

~~~
eru
The ad used the work `grok'. So there was a pretty high chance that the tone
of your cover letter would be well received. Good perception!

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edw519
I am less impressed by the cover letter's creativity than by its honesty. This
guy writes like we're sitting together over coffee, or better yet, beer. He's
either completely sincere or totally full of shit. After 5 minutes in person,
it's probably easy to tell which.

Glad to hear this had a happy ending. Respect.

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noahth
When I hear "creative cover letter" I think of something more than three to
four paragraphs that cover an applicant's background, interests, and goals.
It's an excellent cover letter, sure, but I fail to see much creativity with
the form or structure. There's "only" the creativity that underlies all
concise, punchy, effective writing.

