I was reviewing my email today, when I found one that caught my eye. At first, I assumed it was spam that had missed the filter, but a quick glance showed that it was actually a serious email. The text of it is below.
To: cleaver DOT john DOT k AT gmail DOT com
Subject: [John]Author a 300 page book ' SQLAlchemy cookbook Cookbook' for
Packt Publishing
Hello John,
My name is [redacted] and I am an Author Relationship Executive at Packt Publishing. Packt is a rapidly growing, dedicated IT
book Publishing firm and has rolled out more than thousand books on
various titles till date.
Packt is planning to publish a book titled as 'SQLAlchemy cookbook'
which would be a 300 page book and in the process of seeking potential
authors to work on this book I also read through your resume [Link]. It is
evident that you have an expertise in this area and as such seems to be
an ideal candidate to author this book for us.
It would be a pleasure working with an authority of your caliber.
Do let me know your decision and also if you have any queries, I will be
happy to answer them.
Looking forward to a positive reply from you.
Kind regards,
**[redacted]
As you can imagine, I found this letter to be more than a little humorous, for a variety of reasons.
- I have been in the industry less than a year. I should not be writing a book on anything.
- There is a link to my actual resume. However, the text of the email indicates that the resume was never read. At no point do I mention SQLAlchemy in it.
- Why would you assume expertise based on a resume? Sure, you can assume that if someone puts something on their resume that they are familiar with it and have worked with it, but experience does not an expert make.
Based on the evidence, I had to assume that the email came about as the result of a keyword web crawler hat came across my resume and decided that SQL + Python = SQLAlchemy.
My response can be found below:
[Redacted],
Thank you for your offer, however, if you read my resume, then you would know that I do not claim to be an expert in SQLAlchemy, nor do I mention it anywhere on my resume. Furthermore, I graduated last May and have been working in the industry less than a year. I really am not an 'expert' in anything.
Good luck in finding an author.
Cheers,
John Cleaver