Resume and Cover Letter Requirements

Resume & Cover Letter
Due: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 (changed from syllabus)
Requirement:
- 1-page resume, for a particular job posting
- 1- page cover letter, for the same job posting

As we’ve been working on, you are to find a job posting on-line that you will use to write a mock application; writing both a mock resume and cover letter for a specific position.

It is suggested that you find a job posting in a field related to your own major studies here at East West, as this will provide you good practice for when it comes time to write your real resume and cover letter. Most of you should have done this part already.

A key point to the project is to understand that you are being graded on your ability to understand and create a resume and cover letter that includes the proper content and uses formatting techniques to highlight the document in the reader’s eye.

Some of the requirements might cause you to have to fictionalize work experience, education, etc., only for this project. In the real world, outside this classroom, when applying for a job – you cannot falsify and exaggerate on your qualifications, ethically. Such falsification could get you fired! But, for the purposes of having some fun, and to allow for your creativity, you may imagine credentials and experience in order to create a strong resume and cover letter.
However, the focus is still on your ability to apply some of the basic To Dos of both parts of the job application.

The Resume (1-page):
This is a brief outline of your qualifications for a job. The resume should provide relevant material to the job posting, such as educational background, work experience, skills used, learned, and any honors/credits that show success within the field in which you’re applying.

1. You must have at least 4 main categories, three (3) which you must include: Objectives, Education and Skills. The other 1-2 categories can be from categories such as, Related Work experience/ Volunteer Experience/ Awards / Publications / Relevant Courses, depending on what type of position you are applying for.

2. Considerations when grading:
- Required content: the successful resume develops points within each of the above main categories.
- Aesthetic quality: both in using consistent font and font size, spacing between categories; bullet points; other factors that include overall readability.
- Language and Organization: strong verbs, clear language that uses specifics appropriate to each category; ideas that are not redundant or repeated without development.

The Cover Letter (1-page):
This is a letter that allows you to introduce and develop some of who you are in the workplace, showing that you have knowledge and experience within the position, and describing what you will bring to the workplace.

1. Considerations when grading:
- Development of 2-3 key points: the successful cover letter shows that the potential employee has read the job posting. One does so by explaining how they can fulfill (or have in the past) the requirements asked by the job while proving an explanation of skills and background in job’s field.
- Aesthetic quality: use consistent spacing and font; use paragraphs to highlight points.
- Language and Organization: clear, concise, and engages in the position and its duties. Use specific examples rather than talk in generalities.

Guiding Template and Suggestions for Strengthening your Resume

Personal Information / Contact
- Name, address, phone number, e-mail
- Put name in a larger font to highlight and put in reader’s memory

Objective
- Where you explain position you are applying for
- Duties/ main goals as understood from job posting
- Focus is on “How I can fulfill their goals” for job à what they’re looking for
- Repeat specifics from job postingà job title, as stated
- Be brief as possible à 1-2 lines of explanation
o Strong verbs
- If you have lots of experience within the field (highly qualified), then you may write a “summary of qualifications” instead of a brief objective. This is just slightly more involved and is more centered on what you can bring to job!
o Good for those more advanced jobs – jobs asking for lots of experience or a lot of education and publication,
o Good for those jobs that ask for some unique quality such as “uses technology” that go beyond standards for the type of position

Education
- Stick to college experiences, and post-baccalaureate studies (past your bachelor’s)
- Major field of study
o Minor field of study, if applicable
- Highlight your g.p.a if it is strong
- Graduation or expected graduation
- Thesis, dissertation, honors that come with graduation
- If not in its own category, underneath the above relevant material, this is where you would put “related course work” and also other places of you may have done extra studying
o Study abroad
o Do special research
o Other institutional learning

Skills
- don’t worry about complete sentences
- start with strong, appropriate verbs
o Appropriateness gauge: 1. What is the position 2. What skills are they looking for?
- provide at least two (2) ; they’re looking for multi-dimensional workers!
- provide more than one area of skill level, and if possible elaborate with specific examples from past work (example: page 382)
- This is the category where you provide not specific examples that encapsulate the skill being used.
o Example: rather than simply writing “leadership skills” it is clearer and more effective to write down specific examples that show you have been a leader. “Design leader in “Always Coca-cola” marketing campaign”
o Again, the only reason to use something such as “leadership skills” would be to use this as a sub-heading for providing multiple examples of “leadership skills.”
- Remember: don’t leave reader to interpret skills, but provide where skills came from . . .