Tag Archives: cover letters

New Rules of Work about Cover Letters and Resumes

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On Friday at the Park City Club in Dallas, I will present a synopsis of this best-seller by Alexandra Cavoulacos and Kathryn Minshew:  The new rules of work:  The modern playbook for navigating your career.  New York:  Crown Books (2017).

You can register for this event on the home page of 15MinuteBusinessBooks.com.

One of the issues the authors discuss is whether job seekers still need resumes and cover letters, given the amount of information available about them on social media sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.

Here is what they say:

“Believe us, we’ve heard that question many times before.  But heed our advice when we say that nothing replaces your formal resume and cover letter.  Not your LinkedIn profile.  Not your impressive personal website.  Not your articulate expression of your skills and talents in your informational interview, or your well-written email to the hiring managers.  These are all important, of course.  However, you absolutely still need to have a polished resume and cover letter prepared.  Because all those extra trappings won’t matter if you don’t have the right packaging to catch the eye of your target audience – the hiring managers” (p. 125).

They publish a list of resume and cover letter do’s and don’ts (pp. 149-150)

 

Resume

Cover Letter

Do’s

 

·      Tailor your information

·      Include quantifiable achievements

·      Show, don’t tell

·      Make contact information easy to find

·      Stick to one page – two at most

·      Check for skimmability

·      Include key words from job description

·      Use powerful and unique verbs

·      Proofread

·      Save as a PDF

Do’s

 

·   Share your personality

·   Tell a relevant story about what brought you to the job

·   Expand on your resume

·   Highlight key transferable skills

·   Use the company’s “voice”

·   Address the letter to someone specific

Don’ts

 

·      Make bullets read like job descriptions

·      Include confidential information about a previous employer

·      List “references available upon request”

·      Neglect application instructions

·      Squish it all to one page – six point font

·      Lie

Don’ts

 

·  Fail to write one

·  Regurgitate your resume

·  Use stiff, formal language

·  Address to “whom it may concern”

·  Include a desired salary – unless asked