18: Job Application Materials

Deciphering the Job Description

Most job descriptions can be found on the employer’s website. Generally, a job description will contain important information about what the job entails, along with any technical or educational requirements the employer expects qualified applicants to hold. To start planning planning your application materials, identify each skill and qualification listed on the job posting. You can highlight on a physical printout of the posting, or copy down details into a notebook or on a spreadsheet.

• List each skill and qualification on a separate line.

• Group like with like. If communication skills are listed as important, in addition to giving presentations to potential clients, list one after the other.

Once you have completely decoded the job description, you can start matching up your own experiences and qualifications to what the employer is looking for. This will be very helpful to have on hand as you start working on the next step of the process: creating your resume.

Résumé Design: An Overview

Before personal computers, people used one resume for varied kinds of employment searches. However, with less expensive desktop publishing and high-quality printing, people sometimes rewrite their resume for every new job they go after. For example, a person who seeks employment both with a community college and with a software-development company would use two different resumes. The contents of the two might be roughly the same, but the organization, format, and emphasis would be quite different.

You are probably aware of resume-writing software: you feed your data into them and they churn out a prefab resume. You probably also know about resume-writing services that will create your resume for you for a hundred dollars or so. If you are in a time bind or if you are extremely insecure about your writing or resume-designing skills, these services might help. Often, though, they take your information and put it into a computer database that then forces it into a prefab structure. They often use the same resume-writing software just mentioned; they charge you about what the software costs. The problem is that these agencies simply cannot be that sensitive or perceptive about your background or your employment search. Nor are you likely to want to pay for their services every month or so when you are in the thick of a job search. Why not learn the skills and techniques of writing your own resume here, save the money, and write better resumes anyway?

There is no one right way to write a resume. Every person's background, employment needs, and career objectives are different, thus necessitating unique resume designs. Every aspect of your resume must start with who you are, what your background is, what the potential employer is looking for, and what your employment goals are—not with a prefab design. 

Sections in Resumes

Resumes can be divided into three sections: the heading, the body, and the conclusion. Each of these sections has fairly common contents.

Heading. The top third of the resume is the heading. It contains your name, phone number, address, and other details such as your occupation, titles, and so on. Some resume writers include the name of their profession, occupation, or field. In some examples, you'll see writers putting things like "CERTIFIED PHYSICAL THERAPIST" very prominently in the heading. Headings can also contain a professional summary or highlights. These two special subsections are described later.

Body. In a one-page resume, the body is the middle portion, taking up a half or more of the total space of the resume. In this section, you present the details of your work, education, and military experience. This information is arranged in reverse chronological order, where you start with your most recent experience and work backwards in time. In the body section, you also include your accomplishments, like publications, certifications, equipment you are familiar with, and so on. There are many ways to present this information:

• You can divide it functionally—into separate sections for work experience and education.

• You can divide it thematically—into separate sections for the different areas of your experience and education.

Conclusion. In the final third or quarter of the resume, you can present other related information on your background. For example, you can list activities, professional associations, memberships, hobbies, and interests. At first, you might think that listing non-work and personal information would be totally irrelevant and inappropriate. Actually, it can come in handy—it personalizes you to potential employers and gives you something to chat about while you're waiting for the coffee machine or the elevator. For example, if you mention in your resume that you raise goats, that gives the interviewer something to chat with you about during those moments of otherwise uncomfortable silence.

Resume Types and Design

To begin planning your resume, decide which type of resume you need. This decision is in part based on requirements that prospective employers may have, and in part based on what your background and employment needs are.

Type of organization. Resumes can be defined according to how information on work and educational experience is handled. There are several basic, commonly used plans or designs you can consider using.

• Functional design: Illustrated schematically below in Figure 3, the functional design starts with a heading. Then it presents either education or work experience, whichever is stronger or more relevant, followed by the other of these two sections. Finally, it ends with a section on skills and certifications and one on personal information. Students who have not yet begun their careers often find this design the best for their purposes. People with military experience either work that detail into the education and work-experience sections as appropriate, or they create separate sections specifically for military experience at the same level as education and work experience.

• Thematic design: Another approach to resume is the thematic design, also illustrated schematically in Figure 3. It divides your experience and education into categories such as project management, budgetary planning, financial tracking, personnel management, customer sales, technical support, publications—whichever areas describe your experience. Often, these categories are based directly on typical or specific employment advertisements. If the job advertisement says that Company ABC wants a person with experience in training, customer service, and sales, then it might be a smart move to design thematic headings around those three requirements. If you want to use the thematic approach in your resume, take a look at your employment and educational experience—what are the common threads? Project management, program development, troubleshooting, supervision, maintenance, inventory control? Take a look at the job announcement you're responding to—what are the three, four, or five key requirements it mentions? Use these themes to design the body section of your resume. These themes become the headings in the body of the resume. Under these headings you list the employment or educational experience that applies. For example, under a heading like "FINANCIAL RECORDS," you might list the accounting and bookkeeping courses you took in college, the company-sponsored seminars on Excel you took, and the jobs where you actually used these skills.

Type of information. Types of resume can be defined according to the amount and kind of information they present:

• Objective resumes: This type just gives dates, names, and titles, but no qualitative salesmanship information. These are very lean, terse resumes. In business writing courses, you are typically asked not to write this type. The objective-resume style is useful when you want to use a thematic approach or emphasize the summary/highlights section. By its very nature, you can see that the thematic approach is unclear about the actual history of employment. It's harder to tell where the person was, what she was doing, year by year.

• Detailed resumes: This type provides not only dates, titles, and names, but also details about your responsibilities and statements about the quality and effectiveness of your work. This is the type most people write, and the type that is the focus of most business writing courses. The rest of the details in this section of this chapter focus on writing the detailed resume.

Layout and Detail Format in Resumes

At some point in your resume planning, you'll want to think schematically about the layout and design of the thing. General layout has to do with the design and location of the heading, the headings for the individual sections, and the orientation of the detailed text in relation to those headings. Detail formats are the way you choose to arrange and present the details of your education and work experience.

Layout. Some resumes have the headings centered; others are on the left margin. The actual text—the paragraphs—of resumes typically does not extend to the far left and the far right margins. Full-length lines are not considered as readable or scannable as the shorter ones you see illustrated in the examples in this book.

Many resumes use a "hanging-head" format. In this case, the heading starts on the far left margin while the text is indented another inch or so. This format makes the heading stand out more and the text more scannable. Notice also that in some of the text paragraphs of resumes, special typography is used to highlight the name of the organization or the job title.

Detail formats. You have to make a fundamental decision about how you present the details of your work and education experience. Several examples of typical presentational techniques are shown below. The elements you work with include:

• Occupation, position, or job title

• Company or organization name

• Time period you were there (including the month and year for both the beginning and end of your employment)

• Key details about your accomplishments and responsibilities while there.

There are many different ways to format this information. It all depends on what you want to emphasize and how much or how little information you have (whether you are struggling to fit it all on one page or struggling to make it fill one page). Several different detail formats are shown throughout this chapter, but the most important thing is to be consistent with whatever format you choose. For example, if you list your job title on one line and then the name of the company you worked for on the line below it, that should be the format you use for every entry you create.

Early-Career Resumes

If you are at the beginning of your career, all the advice and examples to this point may seem fine and good, but what if you have very little experience? Careers must start somewhere—and so must resumes. You can use several strategies to fill out your resume so that you appear to be the promising entry-level candidate that we all know you are.

• Cite relevant projects that you've worked on, both in academia and in your community, even if they are not exactly related to the career that you pursue.

• Spend extra time describing college courses and programs you have been involved in. Think about successful team projects, research projects, or reports you have completed while working on your degree.

• Include volunteer work that has required you to use any skills related to your industry. (If you've not done any volunteer work, get to volunteering!)

• List any organizations you have been a member of and describe any of their activities that have any trace of technical in them. (If you've not belonged to any business or professional organizations, get to belonging!)

• Use formatting to spread what information you have to fill out the resume page.

Resumes can include co-op and part-time work. Bulleted-lists extends the length of a the resume so that it fills up the page. At the bottom of the resume, a writer can list awards and organizations. These too can be amplified if necessary. Details as to what the award is about, why this writer received it, and what those organizations are—these are examples of good information that could be added, if necessary.

Subtle changes in format can also help make your resume fill a page. Top, bottom, left, and right margins can all be pushed down, up, and in from the standard 1.0 inch to 1.25 inches if needed. You can add an extra space between sections. To do so, don't just press Enter. Instead, use the paragraph-formatting feature of your software to put 6 or 9 points, for example, below the final element of each section. Line spacing is another subtle way to extend a resume. If your software by default uses 13.6 points of line spacing for Times New Roman 12 point text, experiment with changing the line spacing to exactly 15.0 points.

Cover Letters: Their Purpose

When writing a cover letter, remember that you probably have competition. Your audience is a professional who screens and hires job applicants—someone who may look through dozens or even hundreds of other applications on the day they receive yours. The immediate objective of your application/cover letter and accompanying resume is to attract this person’s attention. Your ultimate goal is to obtain an interview.

As you write your cover letter, be sure you complete three tasks: catch the reader’s attention favorably, convince the reader that you are a qualified candidate for the job, and request an interview. A cover letter should accomplish the following five things:

1. Identify the job by title and let the recipient know how you heard about it.

2. Summarize your qualifications for the job, specifically your work experience, activities that show your leadership skills, and your educational background.

3. Refer the reader to your enclosed resume.

4. Ask for an interview, stating where you can be reached and when you will be available. If your prospective employer is located in another city and you plan to visit the area, mention the dates for your trip.

5. If you are applying for a specific job, include any information pertinent to the position that is not included in your resume.

Types of Cover Letters

To begin planning your letter, decide which type of cover letter you need. This decision is based both on employers' requirements and on what your background and employment needs are. In many ways, types of cover letters are like the types of resumes. The types of cover letters can be defined according to amount and kind of information:

• Objective letters—One type of letter says very little: it identifies the position being sought, indicates an interest in having an interview, and calls attention to the fact that the resume is attached. It also mentions any other special matters that are not included on the resume, such as dates and times when you are available to come in for an interview. This letter does no salesmanship and is very brief. (It represents the true meaning of "cover" letter.)

• Highlight letters—Another type of letter, the type you do for most business writing courses, tries to summarize the key information from the resume, the key information that will emphasize that you are a good candidate for the job. In other words, it selects the best information from the resume and summarizes it in the letter—this type of letter is especially designed to make the connection with the specific job.

Preparation and practice are critical to every step of the job search process, and the cover letter is no different. Five actions can help make your cover letter compelling:

1. Make a list of your top ten strengths.

2. Make a list of your top five weaknesses (also known as areas you would like to strengthen).

3. Decipher the job description to identify each separate skill and qualification.

4. Compare the two lists to see if they are in alignment. Also identify the gaps: does the job description list something you haven’t done?

5. Highlight your top three skills that align with the job description, as you will use them in your cover letter.

Your cover letter should be engaging, informative, and show your command of the written word. It should flow easily from a reader’s perspective, making the connection between the opportunity and your ability to succeed if given the chance. The tone should be compelling. You should be excited about the opportunity and you should be confident of your ability to succeed (even if you truly lack the confidence).

Cover Letter Template

The application/cover letter template includes three main sections:

1. The introductory paragraph

2. The magic middle

3. The last paragraph, which reiterates your interest

The Introductory Paragraph. In the introductory paragraph, you introduce yourself to the hiring manager or recruiter. That first paragraph of the application letter is the most important; it sets everything up—the tone, focus, as well as your most important qualification. A typical problem in the introductory paragraph involves diving directly into work and educational experience. The paragraph should include three general items:

1. State the purpose of the letter—to inquire about an employment opportunity.

2. Indicate the source of your information about the job—newspaper advertisement, a personal contact, or other.

3. State one eye-catching, attention-getting thing about yourself in relation to the job or to the employer that will cause the reader to want to continue.

These three items should be covered very quickly, the space of very short paragraph—no more than 3 to 4 lines of the standard business letter.

Main Body Paragraphs. In the main parts of the application letter, you present your work experience, education, and training—whatever makes that connection between you and the job you are seeking. Remember that this is the most important job you have to do in this letter—to enable the reader see the match between your qualifications and the requirements for the job.

There are two common ways to present this information:

• Functional approach—This one presents education in one section, and work experience in the other. If there were military experience, that might go in another section. Whichever of these sections contains your "best stuff" should come first, after the introduction.

• Thematic approach—This one divides experience and education into groups such as "management," "technical," "financial," and so on and then discusses your work and education related to them in separate paragraphs.

Another section worth considering for the main body of the application/cover letter is one in which you discuss your goals, objectives (the focus of your career), what you are doing, or want to do professionally. A paragraph like this is particularly good for people just starting their careers, when there is not much to put in the letter. Of course, be careful about loading a paragraph like this with "sweet nothings." For example, "I am seeking a challenging, rewarding career with a dynamic upscale company where I will have ample room for professional and personal growth"—come on, give us a break! You might as well say, "I want to be happy, well-paid, and well-fed."

One of the best ways to make a cover letter stand out is to work in details, examples, specifics about related aspects of your educational and employment background. Yes, if the resume is attached, readers can see all that details there. However, a letter that is overly general and vague might generate so little interest that the reader might not even care to turn to the resume.

In the cover letter, you work in selective detail that makes your letter stand out, makes it memorable, and substantiates the claims you make about your skills and experience. Take a look at this example, which is rather lacking in specifics:

Now take a look at the revision:

These edits take general information and make it more specific, developing a narrative around something that might just get a bullet point on the resume. This makes the information much more engaging and memorable for the reader, which will help make you more memorable to the hiring manager.

Closing Paragraph. In the last paragraph of the cover letter, you can indicate how the prospective employer can get in touch with you and when are the best times for an interview. This is the place to urge that prospective employer to contact you to arrange an interview.

Remember that this is still a business letter, so make sure to have a professional salutation and closing. Put extra effort into identifying the name of the hiring manager, so that your letter can be appropriately addressed to the specific person who will be reviewing resumes. Employers do not make this an easy step for you, and you have to do your research. Helpful exercises include researching the company website, reading news releases, and even calling the company to ask. Laziness will hurt your job search effort if this special effort is not made. If, after doing all the preceding, you still do not know the name of the person to whom you are sending your information, by all means, address it using Dear Hiring Manager or Dear Recruiter.

Early-Career Cover Letters

In the preceding, you've seen some impressive cover letters. But what if you don't have all that experience—how do you construct a respectable application/cover letter?

• Cite relevant projects (both in academia and community) you've worked on, even if they are not exactly related to the career that you pursue.

• Spend extra time describing college courses and programs you have been involved in. What about team projects, research projects, or reports?

• Include volunteer work that has had any trace of technical in it. (If you've not done any volunteer work, get to volunteering!)

• List any organizations you have been a member of and describe any of their activities that have any trace of technical in them. (If you've not belonged to any technically oriented organizations, get to belonging!)

• As with the resume, you can use formatting to spread what information you have to fill out the resume page.