Unit 3: Enhance Your Résumé and Cover Letter
You do not need to be technically skilled to create an attractive résumé. You can strengthen the language and organization of your résumé by using action verbs, keywords, and clear headings or markers. Always edit and review your résumé and cover letter to ensure their quality. Ask a friend to review your materials. Be sure to tailor your application materials to a specific position opening. In this unit, we continue the theme of developing marketing tools to introduce yourself, communicate your qualifications, and express your interest in the job. Clearly state how you can provide the ideal solution to the employer’s hiring needs.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 2 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- explain how to create a more concise, powerful résumé;
- describe STAR statements and how they contribute to powerful résumés;
- explain how to document gaps on your résumé;
- explain the importance of proofreading your résumé and cover letter;
- describe what types of negative information to avoid on your résumé;
- explain the purpose of an online profile;
- describe the advantage of joining LinkedIn; and
- explain how to balance providing necessary information and protecting privacy online.
- explain how to create a more concise, powerful résumé;
3.1: Polish Your Résumé Presentation
Whether you are a college student light on work experience or you have gaps in your work history, aim to convince your reader that you have taken advantage of opportunities to learn and grow, such as by taking college courses, starting a business, or volunteering. Your résumé is not a reflective document, but a forward-looking advertisement of your strengths and potential. Be sure to update your material and remove statements that are not relevant to your job search.
This article poses questions to help you present yourself in an organized, dynamic, and professional manner. For example, remove résumé items that no longer fit, eliminate irrelevant sections, and trim down descriptions to create a concise and powerful résumé.
This article explains how to take your résumé from an informative, but dull list of your qualifications, to an expression of your passion for what you do and what you will bring to the employer.
You should use STAR statements because "recruiters and hiring managers prefer to read success stories, not a list of duties". Does your résumé describe memorable events, put your work in context, and highlight the benefits of your efforts? Include at least one STAR statement for each unique task in your résumé.
Hiring managers and recruiters need to make a connection between your course work, internships, volunteer work, and their business needs. This article advises students to keep this in mind when describing their educational history and work background.
You may need to adjust your résumé to account for employment gaps or jobs you only held for a short time. Your failure to address these gaps may eliminate you from consideration. Perhaps you needed to leave the labor force to raise your family or care for a family member. Employers will perceive you to be a viable, competitive candidate if you describe how you took advantage of this time to continue learning and obtaining relevant skills.
Hiring managers will not overlook gaps in your work history. Address these gaps by providing constructive information about career-related, worthy activities you obtained during this time. Although you never want to be deceptive, the author describes ways to hide gaps or make them less obvious on your résumé.
This article reminds us that spell check does not guarantee accuracy. Be sure to check for proper grammar, use appropriate keywords, and present a visually-appealing résumé. Your goal is not to wow the reader with fancy fonts and colors, but to tell your story in a business-like way with no spelling, grammatical errors, or distractions.
Does your résumé effectively market your skills and talents? Think about your presentation from the viewpoint of the hiring manager or recruiter. By advertising your relevant qualifications that make you the perfect candidate for the job, your resume is a marketing tool to help you get an interview, not a tool to complain about past failures.
3.2: Targeting Your Job Search and Résumé
When you decide to apply for a job, identify the industry, position, and geographic location where you want to work. As mentioned above, your résumé and cover letter should offer a polished statement about who you are, where you have been, and where you want to go. Think of yourself as a product that is only interesting to employers and recruiters if you appeal to their hiring needs and preferences.
This article describes three elements of a well-defined, targeted job search strategy. It explains how to narrow your search and filter the possibilities.
This article gives additional advice on how to make your résumé relevant and show you have the skills and qualifications the job description specifies. You can document your early career details and storing them away for future use. However, your resume should reflect your current career status and potential. It needs to be forward-looking and relevant.
Some position openings lack a job description and you need to speculate on the job requirements. This article helps you construct your best sales pitch when must make some assumptions about the job criteria. Use STAR statements and action words to convince the reader you have a results-oriented work ethic.
3.3: Putting Your Résumé Online
Many of today's employers and recruiters prefer to review online résumés so they can use keywords to filter and search through thousands of résumés. In these situations, job candidates who have their résumé or CV posted online in a scannable format have an advantage. These articles give advice for creating an online profile and discuss several social media sites.
To ensure companies can find you easily, consider creating a social media presence and making your résumé accessible online. This article cites the advantages of this, but also cautions you against posting personal information on social networking sites. Nothing remains private once it is on the web. Keep in mind that employers will access your professional information on several social media sites in addition to LinkedIn and Facebook.
This article explains how to use social media to promote yourself online and post your résumé or CV. It discusses the social media sites LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and some niche online communities.
Many employers use LinkedIn to search for qualified job applicants. This article lists the information you should include in your LinkedIn profile. Remember to proofread your materials and include keywords that relate to the skills you think your targeted employers are searching for.
Read this article to learn how LinkedIn contrasts with Facebook and how to get the most out of your LinkedIn account. The power of LinkedIn is the number of employers who look at your résumé, and the relationships you maintain and build as part of your network.
What should you include in your online profile? This article addresses how to balance the need to provide information to employers via social media, and the need to protect your privacy. Recruiters and employers need information to make decisions about interviews, hiring, and promotions, but identity thieves, marketing spammers, and computer hackers can take advantage of those who provide too much information which may cause major havoc to their personal lives. This is a balancing act since you do not want to make your information so obscure that employers are unable to contact you.
Unit 3 Assessment
- Receive a grade
Take this assessment to see how well you understood this unit.
- This assessment does not count towards your grade. It is just for practice!
- You will see the correct answers when you submit your answers. Use this to help you study for the final exam!
- You can take this assessment as many times as you want, whenever you want.