16: Job Application Materials

Chapter Objectives

• Explain a cover letter, an application letter, and a resume.
• Describe research techniques for job searching.
• Explain the process of interviewing.
• Teach networking strategies.

The job search process can be intimidating. Many people struggle with how to look for jobs and the application process. The diagram below explains the steps of a job search. Many people think it starts with finding a job post, applying with your application/cover letter letter and resume, and then going into the interview. There are many more steps in order to be successful in your job search.

Job seeking is a process that involves several steps that should be completed in order to effectively obtain the desired position. Often, it looks like the following:

The Six-Step Job Search Process

Figure: The Six-Step Job Search Process—Step 2. (2017; Amber Kinonen)

Job Research

The first questions is what type of job are you looking for? Are you just coming out of college and looking for an entry level position? Are you an experienced technician in your field and you are looking for another job? Once, you have determined what type of job you are looking for then you need to do some research on positions available in your field. There are many places you can look to find a job in your field of study. There are job search websites like Monster, Indeed, Linkdin, etc... You can also look at company websites in their "career opportunity" section. It is also good to tell friends, family, and colleagues that you are looking for a job. They might know of opportunities that are available at their employer.

Once you find the jobs you want to apply for you will need to decipher the job description.

Decipher the Job Description and Identify Each Skill and Qualification

Most job descriptions can be copied from the employer’s website. Copy the job description and do the following (if you only have a hard copy, it’s worthwhile to retype it as you’ll want to manipulate each requirement for the position)

• Put 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.

In the following sample, each component of the job description is considered and deciphered, in preparation for applying and eventually interviewing for the position.

Resume

A resume is a selective record of your background—your educational, military, work experience, your certifications, abilities, and so on. You send it, sometimes accompanied by an application/cover letter, to potential employers when you are seeking job interviews.

A resume should be easily readable, effectively designed, and adapted to audience expectations. If you are taking a technical writing course, your instructor may be okay with your making up a few details in your resume to represent what you'll be when you graduate. However, if you're just starting your college education and have little work experience, why not try using the techniques and suggestions here to create a resume that represents your current skills, abilities, and background? Developing a decent-looking resume based on what you are now is a challenge that you have to deal with at some point—so why not now?

Resume 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 resumes 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 emphases 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. But often 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 detail, 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 from some prefab design. Therefore, use this chapter to design your own resume, browse through the various formats, and play around with them until you find one that works for you.

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 numbers, 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 goals and objectives subsection and a highlights subsection. 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. In the body section, you also include your accomplishments, for example, 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 the bottom of the resume, people often put "REFERENCES AVAILABLE ON REQUEST" and the date of preparation of the resume. 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 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.

Figure: Sample Résumé—Header and Objective. (2017; Amber Kinonen)

Resumes: 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, the functional design starts with a heading; then presents either education or work experience, whichever is stronger or more relevant; then presents the other of these two sections; then 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 the 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 resumes is the thematic design, illustrated schematically in the preceding. 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.

Figure: Two basic organizational approaches to resume design. Functional and thematic. (The "hanging-head" format is used in the functional-design version. (2017;Resumes Show 'em how good you are by David McMurrey)

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

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 technical-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. Look at resumes in this book and in other sources strictly in terms of the style and placement of the headings, the shape of the text (the paragraphs) in the resumes, and the orientation of these two elements with each other. Some resumes have the headings centered; others are on the left margin. Notice that 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.

Notice that 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, job title.
• Company or organization name.
• Time period you were there.
• 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 above.

Special Sections in Resumes

Here are some ideas for special resume sections, sections that emphasize your goals or qualifications.

Highlights, summary section. In the illustration below, you'll notice the "Highlights" section that occurs just below the heading (the section for name, address, phone number, etc.) and just above the main experience and education sections. This is a popular section in resumes. Resume specialists believe that the eye makes first contact with a page somewhere one-fourth to one-third of the way down the page—not at the very top. If you believe that, then it makes sense to put your very "best stuff" at that point. Therefore, some people list their most important qualifications, their key skills, their key work experience in that space on the page. Actually, this section is useful more for people who have been in their careers for a while. It's a good way to create one common spot on the resume to list those key qualifications about yourself that may be spread throughout the resume. Otherwise, these key details about yourself are scattered across your various employment and educational experience—in fact, buried in them.

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

In the student resume shown below, notice how much space that details about education take up. This resume writer could have included even more: Descriptions of key courses and projects could have been provided under a heading such as "Essential Coursework."

Early-career resume. (Live link as of February 2021) Use the strategies suggested here to fill out your resume with good information.

Notice too that the resume above includes plenty of co-op and part-time work. The bulleted-list format extends the length of the resume so that it fills up the page. At the bottom of the resume, the writer lists awards and organizations. These too could 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. You can add 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.

Resume Checklist

As you plan, write, or review your resume, keep these points in mind:

• Readability: are there any dense paragraphs over 6 lines? Imagine your prospective employer sitting down to a two-inch stack of resumes. Do you think they are going to slow down to read through big thick paragraphs? Probably not. Try to keep paragraphs under 6 lines long. The "hanging-head" design helps here.
• White space. Picture a resume crammed with detail, using only half-inch margins all the way around, a small type size, and only a small amount of space between parts of the resume. Our prospective employer might be less inclined to work through that also. "Air it out!" Find ways to incorporate more white space in the margins and between sections of the resume. Again, the "hanging-head" design is also useful.
• Special format. Make sure that you use a special format consistently throughout the resume. For example, if you use a hanging-head style for the work-experience section, use it in the education section as well.
• Consistent margins. Most resumes have several margins: the outermost, left margin and at least one internal left margin. Typically, paragraphs in a resume use an internal margin, not the far-left margin. Make sure to align all appropriate text to these margins as well. Avoid unnecessary multiple margins: they give your resume a ragged messy look.
• Terse writing style. It's okay to use a rather clipped, terse writing style in resumes—up to a point. The challenge in most resumes is to get it all on one page (or two if you have a lot of information to present). Instead of writing "I supervised a team of five technicians..." you write "Supervised a team of five technicians..." However, you don't leave out normal words such as articles.
• Bold, italics, different type size, caps, other typographical special effects. Use special typography, but keep it under control. Resumes are great places to use all of your fancy word-processing features such as bold, italics, different fonts, and different type sizes. Don't go crazy with it! Too much fancy typography can be distracting (plus make people think you are hyperactive). Also, whatever special typography you use, be consistent with it throughout the resume. If some job titles are italics, make them all italics. Avoid all-caps text—it's less readable.
• Page fill. Do everything you can to make your resume fill out one full page and to keep it from spilling over by 4 or 5 lines to a second page. At the beginning of your career, it's tough filling up a full page of a resume. As you move into your career, it gets hard keeping it to one page. If you need a two-page resume, see that the second page is full or nearly full.
• Clarity of boundary lines between major sections. Design and format your resume so that whatever the main sections are, they are very noticeable. Use well-defined headings and white space to achieve this. Similarly, design your resume so that the individual segments of work experience or education are distinct and separate from each other.
• Reverse chronological order. Remember to list your education and work-experience items starting with the current or most recent and working backwards in time.
• Consistency of phrasing. Use the same style of phrasing for similar information in a resume—for example, past tense verbs for all descriptions of past work experience.
• Consistency of punctuation style. For similar sections of information use the same kind of punctuation—for example, periods, commas, colons, or nothing.
• Translations for "inside" information. Don't assume readers will know what certain abbreviations, acronyms, or symbols mean—yes, even to the extent of "GPA" or the construction "3.2/4.00." Take time to describe special organizations you may be a member of.
• Grammar, spelling, usage. Watch out for these problems on a resume—they stand out like a sore thumb! Watch out particularly for the incorrect use of its and it's.

A well-written résumé can do seven specific things for you and your job search:

(2017; Amber Kinonen)

Figure: Sample Functional Résumé 2. (2017; Amber Kinonen)

Application/Cover Letters

In many job applications, you attach an application/cover letter to your resume. Actually, the letter comes before the resume.

The role of the application/cover letter is to draw a clear connection between the job you are seeking and your qualifications listed in the resume. To put it another way, the letter matches the requirements of the job with your qualifications, emphasizing how you are right for that job. The application/cover letter is not a lengthy summary of the resume—not at all. It selectively mentions information in the resume, as appropriate.

Application/Cover Letters

When writing an application/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 application/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.

Application letter checklist:

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.

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

• Highlight letters—Another type of application/cover letter, the type you do for most technical 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 application/cover letter is no different. Five actions can help make your application/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’d 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 that you haven’t done?
5. Highlight your top three skills that align with the job description as you will use them in your application/cover letter.

Your application/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).

Letter Template

The application/cover letter template includes three main sections:

1. The introductory paragraph.
2. The last paragraph, which reiterates your interest.
3. The magic middle.

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.

And you try to do all things like these in 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! Might as well say, "I want to be happy, well-paid, and well-fed."

Keep in mind that cover letters should not simply reiterate the skills and experiences listed on the resume. They should add value to the job application package by sharing new information that demonstrates the applicant is appropriate for the position. Consider, for example, sharing an experience or project you have worked on that demonstrates your talents and accomplishments.

Closing paragraph

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

Figure: Application Letter Sample 1. (2017; Amber Kinonen)

Figure: Application Letter Sample 2. (2017; Amber Kinonen)

Background Details in the Application/Cover Letter

One of the best ways to make an application/cover letter great 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 application/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:

Example

As for my experience working with persons with developmental disabilities, I have worked and volunteered at various rehabilitation hospitals and agencies in Austin and Houston [say which ones to inject more detail into this letter]. I have received training [where? certificates?] in supervising patients and assisting with physical and social therapy [which specific therapies?]. Currently, I am volunteering at St. David's Hospital [doing what?] to continue my education in aiding persons with developmental disabilities [which specific disabilities?].

Now take a look at the revision:

Example

As for my experience working with persons with developmental disabilities, I have worked and volunteered at Cypress Creek Hospital in Houston and Capital Area Easter Seals/ Rehabilitation Center and Health South Rehabilitation Hospital in Austin. I have received CPR, First Aid, and Crisis Intervention certificates from Cypress Creek Hospital. Currently, I am volunteering at St. David's Hospital assisting with physical therapy to persons with developmental disabilities in the aquatics department.

Early-Career Application/Cover Letters

In the preceding, you've seen some rather impressive application/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.

In the example student application/cover letter below, notice that the writer describes his coursework and the applications that he used. His reference to a professional exposition shows an active interest in a particular technical area. Moreover, his visit with an employee of the company with which he seeks employment is a crafty form of name dropping.

Early-career application/cover letter. (Live Link as of February 2021) Use the strategies suggested here to fill your letter with good specific information.

Format

Formatting is important and must be neat and professional. It’s recommended that you flush all text to the left, as various software programs can wreak havoc with indentations and tabs.

Greeting

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 résumés. 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.

References

Pull from the information in the resume section since the link covers resumes and cover letters together. Just separate them.

Networking

A great way to meet people and market yourself is through networking. A long time ago, people would network at events in person. This was a great way to talk to someone give your "elevator speech" and get to know them. People would exchange business cards and it could lead to job opportunities. Now in the digital age, people network a bit differently. There are still events you can attend; however, you can do most of your networking through social media. Many employers now have links to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. These are platforms that allow you to connect with people and post job opportunities. I piece of advice, it is important to be careful of what you put on social media as employers will look at your social media to determine if you are a fit for their organization. There is much debate if employers should be allowed to use these platforms to determine employment. So, make sure to keep your social media neutral, so that you are not denied employment because of your post or pictures. In addition, you need to have your information current and up-to-date. If you have been hesitant to use social media, try it out and see the opportunities that might exist out there.

GENERAL JOB APPLICATION TIPS

• Readability and white space—Are there any dense paragraphs over 8 lines? Are there comfortable 1-inch to 1.5-inch margins all the way around the letter? Is there adequate spacing between paragraphs and between the components of the letter?
• Page fill—Is the letter placed on the page nicely: not crammed at the top one-half of the page; not spilling over to a second page by only three or four lines?
• General neatness, professional-looking quality—Is the letter on good quality paper, and is the copy clean and free of smudges and erasures?
• Proper use of the business-letter format—Have you set up the letter in one of the standard business-letter formats? (See the references earlier in this chapter.)
• Overt, direct indication of the connection between your background and the requirements of the job—Do you emphasize this connection?
• A good upbeat, positive tone—Is the tone of your letter bright and positive? Does it avoid sounding overly aggressive, brash, over-confident (unless that is really the tone you want)? Does your letter avoid the opposite problem of sounding stiff, overly reserved, stand-offish, blasé, indifferent?
• A good introduction—Does your introduction establish the purpose of the letter? Does it avoid diving directly into the details of your work and educational experience? Do you present one little compelling detail about yourself that will cause the reader to want to keep reading?
• A good balance between brevity and details—Does your letter avoid becoming too detailed (making readers less inclined to read thoroughly)? Does your letter avoid the opposite extreme of being so general that it could refer to practically anybody?
• Lots of specifics (dates, numbers, names, etc.)—Does your letter present plenty of specific detail but without making the letter too densely detailed? Do you present hard factual details (numbers, dates, proper names) that make you stand out as an individual?
• A minimum of information that is simply your opinion of yourself—Do you avoid over-reliance on information that is simply your opinions about yourself? For example, instead of saying that you "work well with others," do you cite work experience that proves that fact but without actually stating it?
• Grammar, spelling, usage—And of course, does your letter use correct grammar, usage, and spelling?

The job search process can feel overwhelming. Remember to start with researching what type of job you are looking for to start your career or move into a different journey. Once you have found some jobs that fit where you are in your career, take a look at the job description and note how your experiences fit what the employer is looking for in their position. You want to make sure your cover/application letter covers those points highlighted in the job description. Your resume will either be functional or chronological. You will gear your resume towards the job in which you are applying. You might have multiple versions of your resume based on the types of jobs you are applying. Be creative and make your resume and cover letter stand out. Employers have many job applications packages to review, so you want to make sure they look at it and pick you for an interview.

This work “English 145 Technical & Report Writing” by Amber Kinonen from Bay College and Resumes Show 'em how good you are by David McMurrey, used under a CC BY license. "Job Application Materials" is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by Lise-Pauline Barnett.