DAMN IT! I accidentally submitted the wrong materials to a company that I REALLY wanted to apply for...has this happened to you?

Acknowledge the error in your next application. Everyone makes mistakes. Not everyone realizes it, and an even smaller percentage of those who do acknowledge and try to recover. That alone should make you a standout.

Write to them with a more formal explanation of what you just told us. It might not solve the problem but as my Jewish grandmother would say, “It couldn’t hoit.”

I would contact them right away and let them know that you just noticed that the wrong cover letter was attached. The way you handle this mistake will help them to know more about you as an employee.

There will always be mistakes made as an employee or by your co-workers, so part of a good team dynamic is how those mistakes are addressed.

No, never done quite that, thank god…

Depends on a number of factors like how strong of a candidate are you compared to the rest of the applicant pool (if weak, you’re screwed), how rigid they are (if they have zero compassion for human error, you’re screwed).

Agree with @CyanoticWasp that you should at least attempt to remedy the situation. If all else fails, blame it on the economy – jobs are scarce and you’re applying for them all, but really Company X is your first choice….

As someone suggested write a formal letter saying that your C.V was requested by another company and you sent them the incorrect cover sheet. It’s not the end of the world.

Well, it would give you a great excuse to call them! At least you’ll stand out, even if you don’t get the job. :) (If you’re like me, that’s the kind of thing I’d do, after bragging about my ability to focus on detail in my resume!:)

The first thing I thought was to contact them, but they actually already have my correct cover letter from a little over a week ago – I just figured it went right to hr and never looked at again.

This cover letter was posted through a networking system. What do I say? “Hey uh, it’s me again…for the third time…so ummm…that cover letter, see, you might notice it’s addressed to another company and yeah sorry about that here’s the real one. Again. In case you’re interested.”

I’d feel like Jon Favreau leaving messages on the woman’s answering machine in Swingers.

I see your point but what else can you do?

Haha short funny story time:

I think the closest I have is that I once needed to give a flash drive full of my work from the semester to my college professor.

I instead gave him one full of porn.

That’s a hoot, @Haroot!!

He let me re-submit the assignment but never gave my flash drive back…

LOLLL!

Well if it makes you feel any better, I uploaded a cover letter and resume for a position taking over running the company for the owner/founder and apparently my new modified version of my cover letter did not save! To my horror, 4 days later when I went to print it out and take it to them personally, I discovered that had not saved and read things like “Having lived in the Southern California for 2 years, I know I could be of great assistance in achieving the revenue objectives…” It was not supposed to have “the” of course and I have lived here for 20 years not two. Yeah boy those 2 years are really going to benefit the company! OMG.

At any rate, I called the VP of HR (who is either his wife or sister based on the same last name) and explained the situation. She gave me her fax # and I sent the correct version to her. I haven’t heard back. But I plan to go there anyway.