Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters Tips
Providing daily suggestions for making your resume, cover letter, and other career-marketing communications as effective as they can be.
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Spotlight Transferable Skills in Cover Letter, Resume
“The most effective technique career changers can use in their resumes and cover letters is TRANSFERABLE SKILLS, TRANSFERABLE SKILLS, TRANSFERABLE SKILLS,” writes regular contributor Maureen Crawford Hentz. “I recently gave a workshop specifically on this topic for career changers at the National Environmental Careers Conference. I was shocked at the number of competent, successful individuals who kept referring to themselves as ‘totally unqualified for a job in the environment.’... |
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Techniques for Sharpening Your Resume's Focus
Here are ways to consider sharpening the focus of your resume: Use a branding statement or headline or both atop your resume. Add a profile/qualifications summary with keywords relevant to the job you seek. Add a keyword section relevant to the job you seek. Beef up portrayal of accomplishments and transferable skills. Be sure to spotlight skills that apply to what you want to do next. Use our Cover Letter and Resume Customization Worksheet to help you sharpen your focus. For college... |
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Do I Need a Text Version of My Cover Letter?
Should you have an ASCII (text only) copy of your cover letter? Pronounced as-kee, ASCII simply means the document has been stripped of all beautification features such as bold, italics, decorative lines, bullets, and fancy fonts. An ASCII cover letter is typically pasted within the body of an e-mail, or submitted within an online form. By simplifying the document, you’re enabling management systems to “read” your submission. If not transformed into this version, the document... |
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How Do I Add Salary Requirements to a Cover Letter?
Some career professionals feel the inclusion of salary requirements makes it too easy for HR managers to exclude individuals from candidacy. Unfortunately, this is very true. But when the hiring manager asks for salary requirements (btw, only include it when asked to do so), you run the risk of excluding yourself from candidacy by failing to disclose that which was asked for. Either way, you are presented with some risk. Including salary requirements into a cover letter isn’t difficult;... |
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Networking for the Shy and Introverted
As a member of a community of resume writers, career coaches, and other career experts called the Career Collective, I am posting this entry on the topic of networking, along with links to other members’ responses at the end of this entry. Please follow our hashtag on Twitter: #careercollective. Think everyone who successfully networks must be a gregarious extrovert? The vast majority (70 percent) of job-seekers surveyed for my book, A Foot in the Door, described themselves not as extremely... |
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In Cover Letter, Tell Employer Reason You're Writing
A good cover letter should begin with the reason you are writing to the employer, writes Deborah Brown-Volkman, president of Surpass Your Dreams, Inc. a career, life, and mentor coaching company. For example: “I am writing to you today because…” In this section, Brown-Volkman advises, “state why you are writing to the employer. Where did you see the ad for the position, or who recommended you?” |
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Quantify on Your Resume, But Don't Go Overboard
Hiring decision-makers surveyed for the book, Top Notch Executive Resumes identified this as one of their Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves: Resume is so full of quantitative data that it’s hard to read. Your resume must tell stories of your successes and results. Numbers are great, but well-chosen words and well-crafted phrases will also get your message across. Excessive use of numbers can hurt your resume’s readability, so don’t go overboard. See all 30 peeves: executive... |
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Cover Letter is Pointless If It's Not Specific
You’ve heard the adage in real estate and retailing that success centers on three things: location, location, location. With cover letters, success is also tied to three things: specifics, specifics, specifics. In our roles as resume and cover-letter writers, we often got requests from customers that went something like this: “Just give me a general cover letter that I can use for any kind of job.” Sorry. No can do. Well, we can do it, but we certainly don’t recommend it. A... |
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Include Variety of Contact Information on Your Resume
Although studies have shown that employers rarely try reaching job-seekers using any number but land-line home phone numbers, include on your resume and cover letter your cell-phone number and any other option for reaching you, such as fax number and office phone number (if you can discreetly receive employer calls at your office). Also include your mailing address and, of course, your e-mail address(es). Make sure your email address is professional, not one such as SexyBabe2301@aol.com.... |
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Great Cover Letter: Focused and Well-Written
The ideal cover letter is focused, professional, and well-written, writes Deborah Brown-Volkman, president of Surpass Your Dreams, Inc. a career, life, and mentor coaching company: “While the employer is reading your cover letter, they are deciding if it makes sense to continue onto your résumé. If you cannot make your cover letter great, then the employer has no reason to believe you will do great work for them either.” |
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Show Results on Your Resume
Hiring decision-makers surveyed for the book, Top Notch Executive Resumesidentified this as one of their Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves: Resume content lacks results. Hiring decision-makers want to see the results you attained for past employers, what you accomplished, the value you added, and how you made a difference in your past jobs. They want to gain a sense of the complexity and significance of what you’ve done. Some recruiters recommend a bulleted list of key projects indicating... |
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Free E-Book Offered to Young Job-Seekers
During the past couple months, the folks at Brazen Careerist have been compiling an eBook designed to help young job-seekers overcome the hurdles of finding mentors. The chapters in this book come from some of the top human-resource bloggers on the web — big thinkers and do-ers and people whom the folks at Brazen look to for trends in hiring. Some topics these leaders cover include … Marketing Yourself Based on the Value You Will Bring Your value proposition has to be out there,... |
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Cover Letter Helps You Get Your Foot in the Door
You must get your foot in the company door first to have any chance at all, notes Jimmy Sweeney in his article for Quint Careers, the 7 Elements of a Highly Effective Cover Letter. With the right cover letter, you can blow several doors wide open immediately. More job interviews translate to a wider range of opportunity and (drum roll, please) … more job offers. |
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Will Your Name Flummox Employers?
If your name is hard to pronounce or it fails to clarify your gender, you may want to address the issue in your resume. Even if you’re well qualified, an employer may hesitate to phone you for an interview if he or she can’t pronounce your name or even doesn’t know whether to expect a male or female. For the difficult-to-pronounce name, include a phonetic pronunciation of your name in small type in the “letterhead” portion of your resume. Example: “Sally... |
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Cover Letter Can Offer In-depth Picture of You
Cover letters can do more than simply introduce you, writes Deborah Brown-Volkman, president of Surpass Your Dreams, Inc. a career, life, and mentor coaching company. “They can give an employer a more in-depth view of who you are and what you will bring to the table.” |
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Employers Disdain Weak Objective Statements on Resumes
Hiring decision-makers surveyed for the book, Top Notch Executive Resumes identified this as one of their Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves: Resume contains a weak objective statement. Most people in hiring positions do not read Objective statements. “Omit objective statements [because] the applicant, as a matter of principle, has no objective; the company has the objective,” advised John Kennedy, senior IT recruiter at Belcan. “Whatever you write, your objective is to... |
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Addressing Relocation in a Cover Letter
In a cover letter, how do you address relocation for personal reasons? Easy. You simply need to say you are relocating for personal reasons. People move all the time, so changing geographic locations should not be an issue. What may be more difficult is your strategy for finding a new job before you relocate. Start contacting those in your network, especially in your new location, and let them know you are relocating and looking for a new job there. Then, get on the Web and do some research on... |
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Beware of Risky Resume Disclosures That Could Screen You Out
Any disclosure on your resume — such as religion, church affiliations, or political affiliations — that could get you screened out as a candidate is risky. You may take the stance that you don’t want to work for an employer that would eliminate you because a hiring manager didn’t like your political beliefs or religious affiliation. But given that, for most candidates, religion, politics, and any other controversial affiliations are not relevant to your next job, it’s... |
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In Cover Letter, Be Innovative, Not Imitative
Do your legwork before sending any cold-contact letter, exhorts Teena Rose in her article for Quint Careers, Optimizing Your Cold-Contact Cover Letter. Every job-seeker finds himself or herself sending this type of letter from time to time, so do yourself a favor by cultivating the info you’ll need to design a letter that outshines those used by others. A good rule of thumb is “be innovative, not imitative.” To see an explanation of cold-contact letters and two other types of... |
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Your Resume Makes Your First Impression on Employers
“First impressions count more than ever in today’s virtual world where face-to-face meetings are becoming an endangered species,” writes Peggy Klaus in her article for Quint Careers, Are You Up To Snuff When It Comes To Soft Skills?. “When your resume formatting is messy or your follow-up note demonstrates poor writing skills, spelling errors, and incorrect word usage, you will be demonstrating your soft skills, or lack thereof, loud and clear!” |