LECTURE NOTES

CHAPTER 15--WRITING RESUMES AND APPLICATION LETTERS

THINKING ABOUT YOUR CAREER

• Three steps in career planning:
  1. Analyze what you have to offer employer.
  2. Determine what you want out of a job.
  3. Seek employment opportunities that match your interests, capabilities, and goals.
• You offer an employer
  • Skills: general abilities that cut across functional lines, such as speaking ability.
  • Employment qualifications: educational preparation, work experience, activities, achievements.
  • Personal characteristics: personality traits (such as curiosity, aggressiveness, persistence, friendliness) and personal values (such as helping others or having freedom to create things).
• Some ways to analyze what you have to offer:
  • List ten achievements; look for skills common to those achievements.
  • Ask your friends and family to list your abilities; compare lists.
  • List jobs that your work experience, education, and other experiences have prepared you to do.
  • List four or five most important personal characteristics; ask friends and family to make similar list.
  • Undergo vocational testing in school counseling office to determine interests and abilities.
  • Identify values satisfied in previous job or volunteer project.
  • List things you enjoy doing.
• Know what you want to do by considering
  • what you like doing every day (for example: "I would like a job in which I can use my artistic talents").
  • What you hope to accomplish (how much you hope to make financially, how far you hope to advance, and how rapidly you hope to progress).
  • What environment you prefer (what kind of organization appeals to you--size, location, product orientation, working hours, facilities).
• Sources of information on various industries, regions, and occupational fields:
  • Business pages of newspapers.
  • Business-oriented TV programs and news reports.
  • Business magazines.
  • Government publications.
  • Professional and trade journals.
• Sources of information on specific companies, organizations, and job openings:
  • Directories of employers.
  • Company brochures, annual reports.
  • Visits to company, interviews with employees.
  • Newspaper advertisements.
  • Trade and professional journals.
  • College placement office.
  • Government placement offices.

WRITING A RESUME

• Resume: a form of advertising that emphasizes a job applicant's strong points and downplays disadvantages; its purpose is to create desire for an interview.
• Format and style of the resume are important because they determine the recruiter's initial impression:
  • Use letter-size white bond paper, black ink, wide margins.
  • Keep to one page if possible.
  • Use layout and graphic design to emphasize strong points.
  • Check mechanics.
  • Use simple, direct writing style that makes use of short, crisp phrases and action verbs.
• Essential elements in a resume:
  • Name and address.
  • Academic credentials.
  • Employment history.
• Without exaggerating or lying, present your strongest, most impressive qualifications and skirt areas that might raise questions.
• Name and address: who you are, how you can be reached.
• Career objective (optional):
  • Provide frame of reference for evaluating resume.
  • Tell what you want to do, why you are qualified.
  • Be specific but not too narrow.
• Summary of qualifications and ate of availability (optional--may be used in place of career objective): a brief overview of qualifications; is useful for long resumes.
• Education:
  • Emphasize if you are still in school.
  • List each postsecondary school attended, with most recent school first.
  • List off-campus training programs related to career goals.
  • Include grades if impressive and relevant to job.
  • Place education before experience if you are a new graduate; place experience first if you have been out of school a few years.
• Work experience:
  • List places where you have worked, positions you have held.
  • Emphasize jobs related to career goals.
  • List in reverse chronological order, with most recent job first.
  • Include name, location, brief description of employer.
  • List your title and dates of employment.
  • Describe accomplishments related to career goals.
• The relevant skills section includes such skills as foreign languages and computer expertise, as well as information such as the date you are available to start work.
• Activities and achievements (optional): paid or unpaid activities that demonstrate your abilities.
• Personal data (optional):
  • Omit references to race, age, gender, marital status, religion, national origin.
  • Include hobbies, military service if relevant to career goals.
• Three organizational plans for resumes; choice depends on the applicant's background and goals:
  • Chronological resume.
  • Functional resume.
  • Targeted resume.
• Chronological resume:
  • Is traditional approach preferred by many employers.
  • Emphasizes directly related experience (or education for new graduates).
  • Lists positions (schools) in reverse chronological order.
  • Is best choice for person with strong work history looking for position similar to current job.
• Functional resume:
  • Is organized around list of accomplishments.
  • Discusses employment history and education in subordinate sections.
  • Is good for new graduates and people trying to redirect their career or minimize breaks in employment.
• Targeted resume:
  • Emphasizes what you can do for a particular employer in a particular position.
  • Lists capabilities first and then achievements.
  • Places employment history and education in subordinate sections.
  • Is good for people who have a clear idea of what they want to do and can demonstrate ability in the targeted area.
• To write the "perfect" resume:
  • Consider employer's needs.
  • Avoid such common mistakes as submitting resume that is too long, too short or sketchy, wordy, too slick, amateurish, poorly reproduced, misspelled and ungrammatical throughout, lacking explicit or implicit career objective, boastful, dishonest, gimmicky.

WRITING AN APPLICATION LETTER

• Tailor the application letter for specific employers.
• An application letter is a form of "sales" letter; use the persuasive plan (indirect approach).
• Use a confident, businesslike tone.
• The content should indicate knowledge of the employer.
• Solicited application letter: sent in response to an announced opening.
• Unsolicited application letter: sent "blind" to an organization that has not announced an opening.
• In the opening paragraph of a solicited application letter,
  • Mention where you learned of job.
  • Tell in general terms what you have to offer.
• In the opening paragraph of an unsolicited application letter,
  • State what position you are applying for.
  • Get the reader's attention.
• Ways to get attention in an unsolicited application letter:
  • Show how your strongest skills can benefit organization.
  • Describe job requirements, show how well you fit.
  • Mention name of someone reader respects.
  • Refer to publicized accounts of organization's activities.
  • Ask question that shows understanding of organization's needs.
  • Use catchy phrase.
• Opening should state what position you are applying for.
• In the middle of the application letter, summarize your key selling points (your key qualifications) and explain how they can benefit the employer:
  • Mention qualifications related to job; don't repeat resume.
  • Explain how you meet all requirements mentioned in ad (for solicited application letters).
  • Present evidence to back up key qualifications.
  • Show evidence of such job-related qualities as diligence, intelligence, tact.
  • Include salary requirements only if asked to do so.
  • Mention your resume.
• In the closing paragraph:
  • Ask for specific action--an interview.
  • Make action easy by providing a phone number and suggesting a time to call.
  • Remind reader of your key selling point.
• The "perfect" application letter achieves one goal: It gets you an interview.

WRITING OTHER TYPES OF EMPLOYMENT MESSAGES

• In job-inquiry letters, which are direct requests for an application form,
  • Use direct plan.
  • Provide some evidence of qualifications.
  • Consider applying in person instead of writing letter.
• Application forms are standardized data sheets that simplify comparison of applicants' qualifications:
  • Be complete, accurate, neat.
  • If form asks for salary requirements, say "open to negotiation" or consult government survey to determine standard pay for particular job in given area.
  • Purpose of writing application follow-ups: to remind company of your interest and to update your application.

Last Update: 4/23/01
Web Author: Angie Chittick
Copyright ©1998 by Angie Chittick - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED