Cover Letters are Necessary!
Cover letters are simply a letter of introduction. In these letters you are explaining who you are and why you are writing to the resume reader. It is a matter of courtesy that you introduce yourself when you are requesting something of them, in this case an interview.
What Instances Require a Cover Letter
My rule is – if you are not shaking hands with the hiring decision maker and introducing yourself, then you need a cover letter to introduce you. If you are shaking hands with the hiring manager, you are introducing yourself verbally and requesting an interview. In this case, hand them your resume without a cover letter.
On the other hand, if you are sending a resume by mail, if you give your resume to a friend to hand in, or if you leave your resume with the hiring manager’s secretary then you are not shaking the hiring manager’s hand and you need to have a cover letter enclosed with your resume.
Cover Letters Should Be Brief and Simple
Hiring managers only glance at cover letters. They have 50+ resumes to read out of which they will select a few candidates for interviews. I recommend letters be 3-4 paragraphs.
Many people provide lengthy autobiographies in the cover letter. They regurgitate their resume and then some. This is a waste the writer’s and reader’s time.
Cover Letter Content
Address these 4 topics in a succinct manner and the hiring manager will be grateful.
1) For what position are you applying?
2) How did you learn of the position or company?
3) Why are you perfect for the position?
4) Who will contact who?
I usually cover 1 & 2 in the first paragraph and a paragraph each for 3 & 4.
You can obtain examples of excellent cover letters that will make letter writing simple, by clicking to Cover LetterCopy.
© 2006 Cover-LetterCopy.com
Resume Writing Made Easy
Wednesday April 05th 2006, 10:49 pm
Filed under:
Resumes
Resume Writing # 1
Focus your resume on what the potential employer wants to hear. Your resume should be an advertisement addressing the needs of the potential employer, NOT your autobiography. The employer should be thinking “wow, this person has exactly what I am looking for” as they read your resume.
Resume Writing # 2
Make your resume easy to read. A potential employer will spend approximately 20 seconds scanning each of the 50-100 resumes in front of them. An easy-to-read format enables them to read your whole resume rather than a small portion in that 20 seconds.
Resume Writing # 3
Write a resume with substance & depth. Don’t summarize, water-down, and oversimplify your job responsibilities and accomplishments. The result is that a potential employer thinks “this person is lazy and doesn’t do very much”Resume Writing # 4
Be bold but honest throughout your resume. An employer will interview only the 3-5 strongest candidates. Modesty will cause you to lose the interview.
Resume Writing # 5
Prioritize the information that the employer seeks and simplify or omit information of minimal interest to the employer. The most significant accomplishments and jobs need to be at the beginning of the resume, not buried further down the page.
Resume Writing # 6
Proofread your resume to eliminate spelling errors, grammatical errors, and formatting inconsistencies. A potential employer will say “a person presenting them self this poorly on paper will likely poorly represent our company.”
For resume analyses demonstrating these 6 resume writing recommendations go to http://resumecopy.com/freeresumeexamples/
Copyright 2006 All rights reserved
Six Common Resume Writing Mistakes
Tuesday May 16th 2006, 2:54 pm
Filed under:
Resumes
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Mistake # 1
A resume is not an autobiographical document. It should serve as an advertisement about your professional skills and experience. A résumé should address the specific needs of the potential employer who is reading it. The ideal reaction of an employer who is reading your résumé should be, “Wow. This person has exactly what I am looking for.”
Mistake # 2
A common mistake in creating a résumé is to water down and oversimplify your responsibilities and accomplishments. The result is that potential employers often think, “This person is under qualified and has not worked toward solid professional advancement.”
Mistake # 3
Do not use a hard to read or confusing format. Potential employers will have approximately twenty seconds to scan your résumé. Because of the volume of résumés a potential employer must review, you should set yourself apart by using an easy-to-read format that quickly and easily conveys the essential facts about you.
Mistake # 4
Avoid the common pitfall of providing more detail and depth for past positions than for your present employment. You may unintentionally give potential employers the impression that your career has peaked or is in decline. The result will be that you will be passed over for an interview.
Mistake # 5
You should never, ever submit a résumé with spelling or grammatical errors or format inconsistencies. As the old saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Potential employers will notice any sloppy mistakes in your résumé and think, “A person who presents himself this poorly on paper will likely be a poor representative of my company.
“Mistake # 6
Avoid burying information that is important to a potential employer in the text or layout. Prioritize the information contained in your résumé and then make what is most important about your professional experience the first thing that a potential employer will see. Omit information that is unnecessary or of minimal interest. Be concise.
For resume examples highlighting these common mistakes, go to http://www.resumecopy.com/resumecritiques.html
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Copyright 2006 - ResumeCopy.com
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Sample Resumes Help You Write Your Resume
Tuesday August 29th 2006, 7:08 am
Filed under:
Resumes
Sample resumes that you can copy from to write your own resume is an excellent alternative to hiring a professional resume writer and will save you hundreds of dollars.
Whenever I do something for the first time I like to have demonstrations or examples in front of me so that I have a good idea of what the end product looks like. Having a demonstration or examples also shows me where to start and gives me pieces that I can use that will make my product better. Usually the more demonstrations or examples that I use, the better my finished product becomes.
Writing a resume is so much easier when you have several quality resumes (in your same occupation) in front of you to copy. By looking at several of the resumes you immediately can decide on the page format, font, and type size that you like. Even more important you can decide which categories your resume will include and content ideas that you never even thought you should include on your resume. Then you will get ideas on the wording of your job descriptions and how to stress the accomplishments at each of your jobs. Before you know it you are on you way to writing the resume that you had procrastinated writing for too long.
Many resume writing professionals say you can’t copy resumes to write your own resume. Your resume they say is so personal and individualistic that each one must be written uniquely for each job candidate. This sounds great for their vantage point. They want to sell “custom” work. Your resume is not your biography, but a demonstration that you are a great nurse, retail manager, accountant, or network administrator. By looking at resumes of other people in your field you can write a professional quality resume.
Resume Writing Simplified
Friday February 23rd 2007, 1:49 pm
Filed under:
Resumes
Click for http://www.resumecopy.com/resumesillustrated/?page_id=17” target=”_blank”>SUBMIT MY RESUME
For 20+ years I’ve been a professional resume writer. My name is Cliff Madell and my business is the Resume Center . We see dozens of clients each week that pay $79-$350 for a resume consultation, resume writing, and printing.
In the consultation I educate my clients about resumes. I explain that there’s no magic to getting the job interviews they want, just a great resume. A great resume follows some simple but crucial guidelines.
1. Determine who is reading your resume
2. Write what the reader wants to hear
3. Make your resume easy to read
4. Write a resume with substance & depth
1. Determine who is reading your resume
Who is reading your resume? A human resources manager? A department manager? A headhunter? That reader - we’ll call him or her a Manager - knows the type of person they’re looking for before they read the deck of resumes in front of them. That Manager is looking for someone with certain experience, certain skills, and certain training.
Your resume is not the only resume on their desk, it’s 1 of 50 or 1 of 100. The better the position and the better the company you are applying to, the more resumes your resume will be competing against. Remember that Manager is looking for a specific type of person. They’re not going to interview 50 candidates. They will interview 4-5 candidates, You want to be one of those 4-5 candidates.
That Manager knows the type of person they’re looking for. If you don’t write what they’re looking for, your resume will be tossed out. If you write exactly what the Manager wants to hear you will be one of the 4-5 interviewed.
2. Write what the reader wants to hear
It’s like when you were in school. You told the teacher what they wanted to hear and you received an A grade. If you didn’t tell the teacher what they wanted to hear, another classmate would and they would get the A.
When most people write their resume (90%+) they are not thinking about what the Manager is looking for, they’re thinking about themselves. They write their autobiography. The Manager is not interested in your life story. He or she is not looking for a friend, a spouse, or an interesting person. The Manager is looking for someone that demonstrates they can best do the job available.
The Manager wants to hear what they want to hear. I am not advocating that we write fiction. This resume has to be honest, but it also has to focus on the part of your background that is relevant to what the Manager is looking for.
If the Manager reading your resume is thinking “big deal, there’s nothing here that I need”, they will read 1/3 of the page and toss it. If that Manager while reading the resume is thinking “wow… this person is doing exactly what I need,” you’ve got the interview. It should not be a coincidence that the Manager is finding what they are looking for. Your resume needs to tell him or her exactly what they want to hear!
3. Make your resume easy to read
Too many resumes are written in the traditional paragraph format that is not easy to read. The Manager has 50-100 resumes and they will not read the paragraphs. They’ll scan 1-2 lines of each paragraph and probably will not find what they are looking for because they didn’t spend the time reading it.
Writing your resume in a bulleted format will enable the Manager to scan your resume.
- Bulleted job descriptions are 3 times faster to read than the long paragraph format.
- In 20 seconds they can read a bullet formatted resume.
- It would take 60-90 seconds to read a paragraph format.
- It’s well documented that employers spend only 20 seconds on the initial reading of a resume.
4. Write a resume with substance & depth.
Making your resume easy to read doesn’t mean simplifying your job descriptions down to 2-3 lines like on many resumes. If you summarize your jobs down to 2-3 lines the Manager will think you are lazy and don’t do much on the job. On the other hand, if you give 8-12 bullets describing your recent jobs the Manager will think that you really take on significant responsibilities and are a good employee. The bullet format enables you to say a lot and still be easy to read, as opposed to the paragraph format where the more you say the less is read. Bulleting is a win-win technique. It enables you to say a lot about your jobs and is it still easy to read.
Summary:
It’s time to start writing. If you order http://www.resumecopy.com” title=”ResumeCopy”>ResumeCopy put the printouts of the resumes in front of you. Highlight the format styles, categories, and particular bullets you want to use. Notice how the Sample Resumes address the key points: 1) write what the Manager wants to hear about you; 2) make the resume easy to read; and 3) provide substance and depth to areas of your background in which the Manager is interested.