If your job listing asks for bells and whistles

This will surprise nobody, but I’m looking for a new job–and I have been willing to consider part-time work that I can do on top of my current gig in order to build some sort of cushion. Every day, I find several new listings that may be worthwhile, and I have to toss out at least one or two because they ask for something dippy in lieu of a standard resume and cover letter. I can entertain a short essay question if it hews closely enough to the typical building blocks of a cover letter, and I can appreciate a nervy free response request if it’s for an ideal senior role. What I can’t accept is someone wanting a fucking voice memo for a part-time job:

I get it: cover letters are stupid and usually tacked on with minimal tailoring at best. But this is namely because we have lived in a pseudo-recession for so long, waiting for everything to collapse into a full-blown crash at any moment. The urge of adding that certain somethin’ to your 150th cattle call application–one in which a hiring manager will absolutely spend a handful of seconds scanning for X title and Y years and Z verbs, no more and no less–has long been dead to everyone but the unblinking sharks among us. It’s less “why try” and more “I’m giving back what I’m getting.”

But what am I going to do in a three-minute voice memo–one that I then have to save and then email? I had to teach my mother last week to send a link instead of photograph her computer: I’ve been through enough before condensing my entire story into the size of a Eurovision song without even having the dignity of a screener call:

Oh hey, this is Nina–*puts on the spoken word section of “You Don’t Know My Name”*

Hello? Can I speak to — to Michael?
Oh, hey, how you doin’?
Uh, I feel kinda silly doin’ this, but, uh
This is the waitress from the coffee house on 39th and Lenox

And you know, I’m really into connecting people
Connecting people to their dreams

Michael, Michael, what are your dreams?
Your dreams Michael–do you need help
with development and operations?
Because Michael, I’m your girl.

Anyway, gtg ttyl *plays the remaining two minutes of “You Don’t Know My Name” before hanging up*

Sending your job materials is already a moment of vulnerability: we do not need to turn this into another type of embarrassment. Save it for the screeners.