Mis-dated cover letter

January 9, 2018 10:55 AM

Feeling very foolish about this. I emailed a resume and cover letter Friday. I used an old letter as a template and forgot to change the date. Should I email a correction to show that I do at least correct errors?
posted by Mom to Work & Money (15 answers total)

Best answer: No. Correct it in future letters and move on. Most people don't look at the date; sending a correction will draw attention to the error which is terribly minor.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:58 AM on January 9, 2018 [39 favorites]

Agree - leave as is - it's highly unlikely they will even notice! Good luck!
posted by sedimentary_deer at 11:13 AM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: the date is from summer 2017.
posted by Mom at 11:15 AM on January 9, 2018

Best answer: Do not call attention to it. Leave it. I think it's very unlikely that someone who would notice the incorrect date and count it against you would be favorably impressed by your attempt to belatedly correct it - lots of people won't notice it at all, and many people might would think your correction was some combination of a) too little, too late; b) a waste of their time; or c) a weird play for additional attention on your application.

Basically the correction has the potential to do more harm than good.
posted by mskyle at 11:25 AM on January 9, 2018 [14 favorites]

Right, leave it be.

For my first job application after graduating college, I misspelled the name of the firm on the cover letter I sent. I got the job anyway.
posted by merejane at 12:02 PM on January 9, 2018 [7 favorites]

Imagine what they would want you to do if you were working for them and had sent out a misdated letter to a client. Yes, you get minor points off for letting the mistake through, but the most professional thing to do is to just assume that the client probably won't notice, and thus there is no need to call attention to it, or that if they do notice, they will understand that it's a simple mistake and not care (UNLESS it's a legal document, in which case there would be a good reason to send a correction).
posted by 256 at 12:02 PM on January 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

Another possibly reassuring anecdote: I once managed to screw up my own email address in a web application system. They contacted me by phone. I ended up going pretty far down the interview process with them before I withdrew for an unrelated reason.

Leave it alone.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 12:50 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'll send a filename that says NameNameResume-March2017.doc or whatever. The cover letter is a little different because you're supposed to write a new cover letter for the job, but I'm sure they realize it's a template and the cover letter isn't from six months ago. Like, I don't make a new resume everytime -- I just update my last one. This isn't a big deal. I'd let it go.
posted by AppleTurnover at 2:43 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Leave it. I am a hiring manager, and I only read cover letters about 20% of the time. When I do read them, I never notice the date.
posted by OrangeDisk at 2:58 PM on January 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

Definitely don't re-send. I would be annoyed to receive two applications from the same person for the same role.

The typo/mis-date I can understand as being something that happens to everyone once in a while.
posted by kitten magic at 3:26 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Don’t re-send. I only glance at cover letters, and when I do, I go straight into the text to supplement something about the resume that made me curious. I doubt I’d notice the date or any other oddities in the header material.
posted by chimpsonfilm at 5:25 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

When I Write a letter in MS word, I insert a date that that updates itself so it's perpetually current. So, Irvington your letter, I'd assume that was your general practice, but in this case you had used a letter with a hardcoded date as a template. Big deal. Now what was your GPA.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:46 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Adding to the chorus: I am also a hiring manager and would not notice the date. Also (before I was a hiring manager), my boss once interviewed someone who had misspelled the name of our company in their cover letter.
posted by 2 cats in the yard at 6:19 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: 2 cats, was it merejane?
posted by Mom at 6:39 PM on January 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

Ha, I didn't even notice that. Unlikely but it sure would have been amusing!
posted by 2 cats in the yard at 3:48 AM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]