Chapter 14
Your Résumé and Job-Application Letter
Chapter Summary
Planning Your Career
One of the first professional applications of your business communication skills is securing a job. The process involves considerable time, effort, and thought. And the process is the same, whether you're beginning your first job, changing careers, or returning to the workplace after an extended absence.
Self-Analysis
The first step in choosing a career is an analysis of your life, your interests, things you're good at, and the experiences that give you the most satisfaction.
Research
Armed with your self-assessment, you are ready to gather information about possible occupations, demographic trends, and industries and companies in which you're interested. Begin by talking with people who are currently employed in the career or industry in which you're interested.
1. Good sources for occupational information include the Occupational Outlook Handbook (available in print and online), the Encyclopedia of Associations, the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Forbes.
2. Consider demographic trends such as population, labor force, industrial profiles.
3. Gather industry and company information through the U.S. Industrial Outlook, Standard and Poor's Industry Surveys. Also, it may be helpful to go online and visit the home page of a prospective employer.
4. Analyze your audience. Learn as much as you can about the employment environment so that you can customize your employment communications to the needs of the employer. Employers hire you based on what they feel you can do for them in the future.
5. Network to develop a group of acquaintances who might provide job leads and career guidance. Most jobs are acquired this way. You can gain new contacts from around the globe by expanding your networking efforts into cyberspace.
Preparing Your Résumé
A résumé is a brief record of one's personal history and qualifications that is typically prepared by an applicant for a job. The emphasis in a résumé should be on the future, not the past. You want to show how your education and work experience have prepared you for the job for which you're applying. The purpose of a résumé is to get you an interview; the purpose of the interview is to get you a job.
Résumé Length
Most managers spend no more than 35 seconds looking at a résumé. So they prefer a one-page résumé for the entry-level positions typically sought by recent college graduates.
Résumé Format
It's crucial here to make a good first impression. Customize your application letter and résumé for each employment opportunity by using a computer and laser printer.
1. Use one or two easy-to-read typefaces in one or two different sizes.
2. Use a simple format, with lots of white space, short paragraphs, and logical organization.
3. Use standard 8½-by-11-inch paper, in white or an off-white. The paper should be at least 20-pound bond.
4. Your résumé should add to your credibility. Make it professional and conservative.
5. Make sure that your résumé and application letter are error free. Errors will reduce your chance of being called for an interview.
Résumé Content
Your résumé should include:
• your name, address, and telephone number.
• your job objective.
your college major, degree, name of college, and date of graduation.
• the jobs you've held, the employing company or companies, dates of employment, and job duties.
• a description of your special aptitudes and skills.
Omit any information that could be a basis for discrimination.
1. Display your name, address, and phone number prominently. Increasingly, employers are also expecting an e-mail address to be listed.
2. Personalize the job objective, and be specific. Some large corporations scan résumés into their computer systems and then search the computerized database by keyword. Thus, you may want to ensure that the title of the actual position you desire and other relevant terms are included somewhere in your résumé.
3. List education before experience unless you have a good deal of experience directly related to the type of work for which you're looking.
4. List work experience chronologically (by date, with the most recent job first) or functionally (by function performed). Your objective here is to show the prospective employer how your experience qualifies you for the job. Use action verbs and concrete words to describe that experience.
5. If you have little or no actual work experience, show how your involvement with professional, social, or civic organizations has helped you develop skills that are transferable to the workplace.
6. If you have special skills that might give you an edge over the competition, list them.
7. Usually references are not given on a résumé. Instead, make a general statement that references are available. And always supply professional references, not character references.
Electronic Résumés
1. An electronic résumé is a résumé that is stored in a computer database designed to help manage and initially screen job applicants.
• The job seeker's résumé is potentially available to a large number of employers.
• The job seeker may be considered for positions he or she wasn't even aware of.
• The initial screening is done by a bias-free computer.
• Employers are relieved of the drudgery of having to manually screen and acknowledge résumés.
• A focused search can be conducted quickly.
• Information is always available until the individual résumé is purged from the system.
4. Two types of computer database systems are in use.
a. An applicant-tracking system (ATS) is a computerized database that companies purchase and maintain to help them track incoming résumés.
b. A commercial résumé databank is created by a commercial software firm.
5. Building appropriate keywords—descriptive terms that employers search for when trying to fill a position— into your résumé is essential to successfully using automated résumé systems.
6. Because you can never be sure how your résumé will be treated, you should prepare two résumés—one for the computer to read and one for people to read.
Content Guidelines for Electronic Résumés
1. Include industry-specific descriptive nouns that characterize your skills accurately and that people in your field use and commonly look for.
2. Put keywords in proper context, weaving them throughout your résumé.
3. Use a variety of different words to describe your skills, and don't overuse important words.
4. Because your résumé is going to look very bland in plain ASCII text, stripped of all formatting, consider adding a sentence such as this to the end of your posted résumé: "An attractive and fully formatted hard-copy version of this résumé is available upon request."
Format Guidelines for Electronic Résumés
1. First, create and save a traditionally formatted résumé.
2. Then save the résumé as a text-only file in ASCII or DOS; special formatting, fonts, tabs, margin changes, and the like are lost in a text file. By saving your scannable résumé as a text file, you can view a printout of your résumé pretty much as it will look after it has been scanned by the prospective employer.
3. Reopen the text file and make any needed changes; be sure to resave as a text file.
4. Make the format as plain as possible; avoid changes of typefaces, justification, margins, tabs, font sizes, and the like. Do not insert underlines, bold, or italic; and do not use horizontal or vertical rules, graphics, boxes, tables, or columns.
5. Use a line length of no more than 70 characters per line.
6. Do not divide words at the end of a line.
7. Change bullets to * or + signs at the beginning of the line; then insert spaces at the beginning of runover lines to make all lines of a bulleted paragraph begin at the same point.
8. Press the spacebar (instead of the tab) to show any needed indentions.
9. Type your name on the first line by itself, use a standard address format below your name, and type each phone number on its own line. Include an e-mail address if possible.
10. Make the résumé as long as necessary (most database résumés average 2-3 pages).
11. After making all needed changes, as a test, mail your text file in the body of an e-mail message to yourself or to a friend to see how it looks after being mailed.
12. Use white 8 1/2 x 11-inch paper, printed on one side only. Do not use textured paper.
13. Submit a clean laser-printed original copy; do not fold or staple.
14. If responding via e-mail, use the job title or noted reference number as the subject of your message.
15. Whenever you update your résumé, remember to update both versions.
Writing Job-Application Letters
An application letter (or cover letter) communicates to the prospective employer your interest in and qualifications for a position within the organization. A solicited application letter is written in response to an advertised vacancy; an unsolicited application letter (a "prospecting" letter) is written to an organization that has not advertised a vacancy.
The letter must be formatted appropriately, look attractive, and be free from errors. Remember that you want to make a good first impression.
An application letter is a sales letter: You're selling your qualifications to the prospective employer. So you want to use persuasive techniques. Provide specific evidence, stress reader benefits, avoid exaggeration, and show confidence in the quality of your product—you!
The letter should be no longer than one page.
Address and Salutation
You should address the letter to the person who will actually interview you. A subject line identifies the purpose of this important message.
The opening paragraph of a solicited application letter is fairly straightforward; in an unsolicited application letter, you have to begin by grabbing the reader's attention.
The body of the letter should be one or two paragraphs in which you highlight your strongest qualifications and show how they can benefit the employer. Don't forget to refer the reader to your résumé.
In the closing, request a personal interview. Indicate flexibility regarding scheduling and location. Provide your phone number.
In Summary,
Job Research
1. Although most newspaper ads are for employees with considerable work-related experience, you can gain a great deal of insight into the types of qualifications employers seek by reading ads in the newspapers.
2. University career services usually keeps on file job descriptions from the various companies that recruit on campus; these are also helpful to you in identifying the qualifications they are expect you to have.
Résumés
1. Many employers like to see the percentage of college expenses that the student provided through work, loans, scholarships, and the like. If you have made substantial contributions toward your own education, you should say so.
2. Identifying a date of availability on a résumé may be helpful to recruiters in cases where you start interviewing several months before graduation.
3. Employers look at potential problem areas—for example, unexplained gaps in employment or a record of frequent job changes.
4. If you establish a placement file in the Placement Office, you can provide the address of the placement office on their résumé rather than indicating that references will be furnished on request.
5. Many of the professional student organizations (DPMA, the Marketing Club, the Accounting Club) develop résumé books for their members. Prospective employers use the résumé books to select candidates they are interested in interviewing when they are recruiting on campus. This gives club members a decided edge in getting an on-campus screening interview. You should learn about the procedures that are followed on your campus.
Application Letters
1. Most employers prefer a very short cover letter. When professionals critique students' letters, they generally say that the letters are too long.
2. Also, most employers indicate that students tend to make generalizations about their qualifications without backing statements up with substantial evidence.
3. In the last paragraph, you may indicate that you will take the initiative to make the call for scheduling an interview. For example: "I will call your office next Thursday to discuss the possibility of scheduling an interview." Many employers like this approach; it helps eliminate telephone tag and shows that students take the initiative.
Ober. 1998. Contemporary Business Communication.