We're going on a job hunt...

Last week I finally caved to responsibility and started properly looking for jobs. Prior to that I'd just been pretending to look for jobs while actually looking at facebook. Quite who I thought I was fooling when I was the only person in the room I'm not sure.

The result of this flurry of job-search productivity is that I am heartened, perturbed and pink.

I am heartened because there are actual jobs out there that I actually want to do and believe I could do well.

I am perturbed because that means that I actually care if they like me or not and that's always a little unsettling.

I am pink because writing cover letters never fails to make me squirm. No matter how qualified I feel I am for a job, no matter what skills or experiences I genuinely have, the process of putting this information into a cover letter and 'selling' myself mortifies me.

However this is not a time for meek and reticent Englishness to hold me back. Therefore I have developed a technique for writing cover letters that has so far succeeded (in that I managed to write the cover letters, not in terms of anyone responding to them): I write with an American accent.

I find if I list my skills, abilities and qualifications with an English accent I sound smug and self-satisfied and more than a little unconvincing. Yet when I switch to American I just sound like a girl trying to get a job. I think this is because we British are so uncomfortable with anything that isn't self-deprecating and wry, whereas Americans have a frankness and an earnestness that makes these things far simpler. I'm not saying that Americans don't experience similar horror when stating they are a perfect fit for a job. Just that, in 'American' it sounds better, more acceptable, less...stiff.

I wonder whether there is any credibility to this theory - whether I write any differently than I would in an English accent - or whether it's just a matter of adding 'zees' to words like organization (but never advertised - confusing that - ooo, or confusing... don't Americans think we're weird for not using Zs? There are a few holes in their argument)

Apologies. This post was really just a long exercise in procrastination.