Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Regardless of the kind of job youre applying for (solicited or unsolicited), and regardless of how
much information you know about the job (a lot, a little, or absolutely nothing), I will not be able to
determine how well youve met the needs of your readers unless I know what your readers needs are. This is why
I need you to provide me with the information that you know about the job and the
requirements for the job, and this is why the job listing is the most critical part of the job
application portfolio.
You can provide me with the job listing information by cutting and pasting text from
somewhere, doing screen shots of the potential employers pertinent web pages, typing
information from a newspaper or a bulletin board posting that you saw on campus. Please do
not simply send me the URL for the page on which you saw the job posting. Firstly, this adds to
the processing time for your paper, and secondly, the information might not be there by the
time I go to the website.
The Application/Cover Letter: The Persuasive Piece of the Job
Application Portfolio
Youll read more about your rsum in a few minutes, but first, lets talk about your
application/cover letter (some people will call it the application letter; some will call it the cover
letter). This is the first thing the potential employer normally will see when you give or send your
job application portfolio. It should sit on top of the rsum. It should be brief (never more than
a page), well written, and persuasive.
Youve likely heard it said that, at first blush, potential employers will spend between 15 and 45
seconds examining a job application portfolio. For that reason, you need to make sure to leave
no trace of a doubt that you are the most qualified applicant and to get that information across
right away. Below Ill describe ways to help you do that.
The Letter Document Format
The format of your letter is a matter of convention; its like wearing a business suit to the job
interview. You would still be you in a Speedo swimsuit but it wouldnt be appropriate to
wear one. It shows that you understand the corporate culture and that you would fit in as a
professional. Your book has letter format examples, and Ive also posted an example on the
Schedule page of the course website. Here are the parts of the letter:
Your contact information (in the form of your letterhead). All three of your
documents letter, rsum, and references must be uniform in terms of the
letterhead, format, and fonts that youve used in them.
The potential employers courtesy title (Mr., Ms., Dr.), first name, and last name (if
you know it. If theres any possible way to track down that persons specific name,
track it down. Search the companys website. Call the companys HR department. It
can make a big difference whether you know someones name).
The inside address the contact information that you have for the employer
The date
The salutation and greeting followed by a colon; a comma denotes familiarity with the
reader and the cover letter is a very formal document (example -- Dear Mr.
Lastname:)
The body of your letter (youll see more details about this below)
Your closing (use something standard such as sincerely or yours truly)
Your signature line (your name typed with enough space above it for your signature)
Your attachments/enclosures. Sometimes youll see people list something like
Attachments: (1). Dont do that. Be specific. List what the attachments are. Why?
Sometimes your document pieces will get separated. Lets say that the potential
employer has your rsum and your attachment has gotten stashed somewhere else
in the pile of papers on his/her desk. Its easier to find your attachment if he/she
knows what it is.
Job ID
Job Title
Job Level
Location
Travel
Job Type
80-100% Full-time
Regular
Job Details
Seeking several entry level consultants for financial markets consulting. Undergraduate degree BS/BA in finance, accounting, MIS,
computer science or business management. Relevant internship or related experience with financial markets preferred. Excellent
written/verbal communication skills, excellent problem solving skills. Will be expected to define issues and assist with preparation and
recommendation of solution alternatives. Excellent team skills, positive relationships with peers, management and customers. Must be
willing to understand diverse point of view and handle multiple tasks.
M-Mobile/Telecommuters
Division
Desired Skills
IBM Global Services, the largest Information Technology services provider in the world, integrates IBMs broad range of services,
hardware, software and research to help meet the IT needs of a wide range of companies. The IBM Global Services portfolio includes
IT & Business Consulting, Business Transformation Services, e-business Services, Strategic Outsourcing Services and Total Systems
Management Services. For additional information please visit www.ibm.com/services.
Education
Major
Not Applicable
Lets examine, generally, what they are looking for. If the comments dont automatically pop
up on your computer, select Comments from the View menu and you should see
something that looks like footnotes at the bottom of your screen. Figure 2 shows a brief
analysis of the job requirements, Figure 3 shows a collapsed version of the requirements,
and Figure 4 shows a condensed, collapsed version of the requirements.
Seeking several entry level consultants for financial markets consulting. Undergraduate degree
BS/BA in finance, accounting, MIS, computer science or business management. Relevant internship
or related experience with financial markets preferred. Excellent written/verbal communication skills,
excellent problem solving skills. Will be expected to define issues and assist with preparation and
recommendation of solution alternatives. Excellent team skills, positive relationships with peers,
management and customers. Must be willing to understand diverse point of view and handle multiple
tasks.
Position requires 100% travel
Candidates should be currently living in or near Boston, New York, or Research Triangle Park.
Comment
Number
1
4
5
2
3
7
8
9
10
Now, after collapsing similar requirements together, try to distill the most important
requirements to summarize your qualifications in the first paragraph:
Comment
Number
1, 4, 5
2, 3
6
8
9, 10
Comment
Number
1, 4, 5
2, 3
6
8
9, 10
Multitasking
Traveling
Live near RTP
multitasking skills
Love to travel
Figure 4. Table that lists condensed, collapsed requirements for IBM position.
Why?
Imagine the mindset of the potential employer. No one looks for job applicants because its
fun. Maybe someone is leaving or has left the company, leaving the employer in a bit of a
lurch, no matter how amicable the parting might have been. Maybe the company and
workload have grown to the point that they need extra help, in which case theyve probably
been swamped for a long time, and taking the time to look through rsums, interview
applicants, check references, and make decisions only makes the situation that much worse.
Now imagine the potential employer, wearily searching through dozens or hundreds of
applications that have been sent in response to job vacancy posting. Some of the job
application portfolios are good, some are bad, some are funny, some are sad. But that
perfect one hasnt happened along yet. The majority of the applicants have not put as much
thought as you have into how you can benefit the potential employer; most of them
obviously know nothing about the company or the job. Most of them are thinking, Hm. I
need a job and I am qualified. Heres what Im looking for. I want a competitive salary and
benefits and two weeks of paid vacation and Thats fine. Thats what we all want, right?
But it makes it that much easier for the potential employer to pick you out of the crowd if
youre saying, in essence, Hey, I can help you; let me prove it. Im already thinking about
what you need. I already know about your company. Call me in for an interview right now!
Of you use the techniques Ive described here, and described in your required reading
selections, that is what your letter will say to that potential employer!
Customize Your Letter
Now that you know the rather simple principles about what goes into the cover letter and
how the letter is structured, you should be able to prepare a letter with more confidence and
ease than before. You should also be able to customize future cover letters quite easily. You
might even consider creating a template where you can plug in relevant information for job
opportunities that strike your fancy. Or you can be even more sophisticated and keep a
collection of useful phrases stored in your Auto Text feature in Word.
If youre interested in learning about ways to automate your cover letter creation process,
email (via webct.ncsu.edu) or call me (829-7000, or 271-7878, or 515-1687) so that we can
set up a time to discuss this in person. Learning the techniques will take you about 20
minutes, and it can shave hours and hours off of the time you spend preparing cover letters.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Its perfectly all right even preferable -- to let your personality
show through in your letter (in a professional manner, of course; you dont want to be wacky
or sarcastic in a cover letter). You dont want to borrow a cookie-cutter letter out of a
book; you are an individual and that is one of the things that will help you to stand out
among a group of qualified applicants.
Read on about the rsum, the second piece of your job application portfolio.
F, f
See all the little embellishments on the tops, bottoms, and edges of the
letters? These are serifs. They help people read more quickly and
efficiently.
F, f
Fonts without serifs (sans-serif fonts) are appropriate for short blocks of text (such as
headings) but not for body text (paragraphs, descriptions, bulleted lists, and the like). Sansserif fonts are good for screen (monitor display); not for printouts of heavy text (such as a
rsum or letter). Fonts with serifs actually help guide the readers eyes so that they help the
readers to read faster and more efficiently.
Not all fonts with serifs are created equally. You want to use fonts that are well proportioned
that is, not really tall and skinny and not really short and squat. This might shock you, but
do you know that Times New Roman, the default on 99.9% of word processors and desktop
publishing programs, is actually not the best font choice for body text? It was created for
narrow columns of text like a newspaper (thus the name Times). Fonts that are much more
readable than Times New Roman are Century Schoolbook, Garamond, Georgia, Goudy
Old Style, Palatino, and Bookman. Please do not use Times New Roman as your font for the body text
of papers for this course.
Consider Preparing Multiple Versions
If you might be qualified for two different types of jobs for example, computer
programming and graphic design then you should consider creating two different versions
of your rsum. You might highlight your programming-related work in the first rsum and
your graphic design work in the second. This might be as simple as reorganizing the major
sections of your rsum. It might involve including more information about programming in
one rsum and more information about graphic design in the next.
Instead of creating one version of the rsum and tweaking it for the two job categories,
youll save time if you have two different versions (or perhaps more, if the need exists) ready
to use.
Consider Preparing Multiple Document Formats
These days, you might apply for a job in many different ways: in person, by postal mail, by
email, by online websites, or by means of your own website.
For this reason, its a good idea to have a few different versions of your rsum, in terms of
the format.
For the rsum that you hand-carry or send by postal mail, an aesthetically pleasing,
traditional printed version of your rsum is appropriate. Likely candidates are Word
or another word processor or even Quark Xpress, PageMaker, or another desktop
publishing program to produce it.
For the rsum that you email, consider creating a PDF version. This will keep the
layout from changing as a result of computer system fonts or printer drivers. If you
send a Word rsum and the recipient doesnt have the same fonts that you have, it
can destroy your formatting. Likewise, if the recipient doesnt have the same printer
drivers, this can create surprising formatting changes.
For rsums that you submit electronically, consider preparing text-only and/or
HTML versions. The text-only version will be unformatted text that you simply cut
and paste into online applications or rsum builders. The HTML version will
contain metatags that allow you to control the look of your document.