13.5: Résumés and Cover Letters
Read this section to get a good picture of the purpose of a résumé and cover letter and to learn how to write them. Make sure to complete the checkpoint exercises except for item 3. You will create your own résumé and cover letter in subunit 13.7. For now, keep in mind that it is a great idea to have a draft of a résumé and a cover letter that you can easily update as needed for job applications; but also remember that you should plan to make significant alterations to your drafts for each job application, in order to tailor both your résumé and your cover letter to a company's specific needs.
Consider what your own purposes for your résumé will be as you consider your personal skills and job interests. Brainstorm how you will organize the three résumé elements - the header, the objective, and the résumé body components - in your own résumé. Think about how you can state your best accomplishments using action verbs.
It is usually better to keep formatting of a résumé as simple as possible. In today's electronic age, many résumés are read by machines before they are read by human eyes - so fancy formatting could compromise your résumé or even eliminate you from consideration before a person ever reads your résumé!
Be sure to understand the purpose of the cover letter, as well as the important elements that should always be included in the letter. Keep in mind that a cover letter should be adapted to the specific job being applied for and geared toward the specific company being applied to. This knowledge will help you avoid producing a general cover letter that might go unnoticed.
Read the headings on the webpage titled "What Is the Purpose of the Cover Letter?" and "Learning about the Job." Some of this information will serve as a review of information you have already seen in your course readings so far.
Next, click on the light orange tab on the left side of the page, titled "What To Include," and read the information under the headings titled "How To Relate your Experience to the Job Advertisement," "Deciding which Qualifications To Include," and "Afraid of Not Meeting the Requirements?"
Finally, click on the light orange tab on the left side of the page titled "Formatting and Organization," and read the information under the headings titled "Formatting Your Cover Letter," "Organizing Your Cover Letter," "Addressing Your Cover Letter," "The Introduction," "The Argument," "The Closing," and "Before You Send the Cover Letter." Be sure to carefully review the cover letter example provided at the bottom of this webpage.
Note that, although these resources echo the information you have read in the College Success textbook, these points are organized differently and often go into much greater detail than the textbook. You may want to bookmark this webpage, as it may prove very useful to you in your long-term college experience.