Now that we've discussed interviewing once, let's do it again WITH Michelle's take. Of Michelle's top 10 tips for successful interviews (available here ), which tips stuck out to you? I found myself resonating with #1. Being able to reflect on ourselves in addition to the organization helps us better recognize what we can offer to the organization. By taking a step back, I found myself better able to envision that future. Also, the STAR method (Tip #7) was pretty great, and it helped me conceptualize how to consider offering an answer with that method in mind. Next, give Big Interview a try (as noted on our assignment portal). You'll have to create an account, which took me all of 15 seconds. Once you're on, you'll note that there's a lot to explore there. I'd recommend at leave clicking on "Practice" and trying a few " General mock interview " questions. It's pretty cool because you have a human asking you the q...
My very first cover letter I had to write I didn't have any in-person help, so I googled "how to write a good cover letter." What I found was pretty accurate with what Michelle has discussed in class. You want to include why you are interested in the position, relevant work history and the skills learned, how you can apply those skills, and possibly how this position will benefit you and how you will benefit the company. I don't remember what my first cover letter was for, but I remember it being successful as I actually got the position or scholarship I was applying for. Also, the internet is really help with formatting cover letters. I think this is the part that is really tricky for a lot of me and me as well. Similar to a resume, it can only be one page and should be customized to fit the position you are looking for!
ReplyDeleteGoogle says to “introduce yourself, mention the job you're applying for, and show that your skills and experience match the skills and experience needed to do the job.” I think that this is a good start to the basic structure of writing a cover letter. In my experience, I’ve learned that it is best to include specific details in your cover letter instead of just general facts about yourself. One thing I am always trying to revise in my job letters is how to cite my concrete accomplishments rather than describe my job duties. Cover letters also need to be tailored to the position you are applying for. They say you should tailor your resume to different positions too, but honestly I think if you have a solid resume, you can change subtle language and organization to fit more with what a position is looking for. Every time a position requires a cover letter though, I usually end up writing a new one each time. Another nice thing about cover letters is that while it’s important to highlight your accomplishments, you can also write more about your soft skills and experiences that don’t make it onto your resume. For example, in most of my cover letters, I talk about my double major in music and creative writing and explain the variety of courses and skills I gain from them both that I wouldn’t get with only one emphasis.
ReplyDeleteI love this: "One thing I am always trying to revise in my job letters is how to cite my concrete accomplishments rather than describe my job duties." Let's all take note! Helping prospective employers recognize that concrete things you've done helps them visualize future concrete successes within their own organization.
DeleteWhen I googled "How do you write a good cover letter?" I found a website that said the purpose of a cover letter is to:
ReplyDelete"introduce yourself
mention the job (or kind of job) you're applying for (or looking for)
show that your skills and experience match the skills and experience needed to do the job
encourage the reader to read your resume
finish with a call to action (for example, asking for an interview or a meeting)."
It also mentions that the cover letter should be relatively short.
I think that this is a general start to a resume. When I worked on my resume in class a few years ago, my teacher said that you should write a personal "story" and include a personal "mission" statement. I enjoy these concepts because it helps make a letter stand out while staying relevant to its purpose. Michelle also mentions that you should write about skills you've gained from your experiences that would help you in the job. I also don't recall any mention of encouraging the employer to read your resume or having a call to action. I mostly feel like it is good to start with a solid letter, and then alter the language and other subtitles that can make the letter feel personalized to the job. (Including potentially some details about the job that demonstrate you've researched the job, and the ways you fit with these details.)
Thanks, Madi. I think you may have confused "resume" with "cover letter" in that second paragraph there, but point taken. The more we can showcase concrete skills, as Abby wrote just above, the better.
DeleteWhen I googled “What makes a good job letter,” the first thing that came up was to introduce yourself which is fairly obvious. But then it says to mention the job you are applying for or looking for and to show that your skills and experience match what is needed for the job. I think this matches what we have been discussing in class and what Michelle has said as well. We have been working on how to sell yourself a lot and how to use your strengths to do so. You want to make yourself look like the most desirable candidate and you have to do that by bragging yourself up a little.
ReplyDeleteWhen I have wrote cover letters in the past, I have usually just googled what a good one looks like and needs to include. I have never actually heard from an expert on what the cover letter should be like. And I don’t think I have ever really understood what the main goal of a cover letter is. So I am really happy that this class is giving me the opportunity to look at cover letters further so I can perfect them when creating one for my future career.
I asked folks to "Google" this because I wanted you all to discover the uniform nature of the cover letter. First order of business: don't commit a major faux pas. At the same time, uniformity can also make it difficult to stand out. There's a reason why Michelle asks us not to use resume templates, after all. The trick, I think, is to showcase your individuality while staying in the safe zone of assuring that you understand protocols and procedures.
DeleteI think the first time I wrote a cover letter, I had my sister look it over for me. She's a finance major and has had a lot of business experience, so she's usually my go-to for anything professional. We tweaked it appropriately, and I kind of just ran with it for a while. It included all the usual things--an introduction, an application of my skills to the position, and some of my relevant job history. Then, over winter break, my dad took a look at it for me and helped me fine-tune some of the things I had written to keep them from being so general.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most important changes he had me make was turning some sentences into specific "I statements", under the reasoning that it makes me seem more responsible and capable of the tasks I was writing about. As someone who has been a part of his fair share of hiring committees, my dad told me that saying things more proactively makes a major difference to whoever is reading the letter.
He also had me revamp my "why should you choose me" paragraph into something truly personal instead of the general statements I'd written. In the end, we came up with something that feels real to me and speaks to my abilities in a greater scope. I'm glad that I now have a solid format to play around with and change to best fit the needs of whatever job I'm applying for.
Love it. The trend is now clear: trade in generalities for specifics! "I" statements, too, sound like good advice. The passive voice ("projects were completed") rather than the active voice ("I completed projects...") is essential.
DeleteMy findings were quite similar to what’s already been shared, but the bulk of cover letter advice I found via Google was about introducing yourself, expressing interest in the position, and remaining professional while still somewhat original. One article stressed the importance of making the cover letter more than just a repeat of the resumé, something I remember Michelle pointing out in class. Another tip that stood out was to avoid giving in to the temptation to cut and paste into some sort of pre-done format. We want our potential employers to be interested in what we have to say, not tuning out by the time they reach the third sentence of our cover letter. This is another point I remember Michelle touching on, but it can be a tough one to actually enact. However, if we want the reader to continue to the resumé, the cover letter should be engaging. Another key element to consider is the type of job (which should factor into the customization of the letter from the get-go)—if it’s more traditional or formal, it may be wise to stay a bit more “in the lines” with the cover letter, but a more creative job for an up and coming employer could merit some creative risks in the cover letter. Michelle discussed this in our class as well, though I believe we may have been focusing more on resumés at that point.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I think this was a helpful exercise to reaffirm some of the wisdom we’ve picked up in class. I think these reminders will serve me as I move forward and write more cover letters down the road!
Love all this. As I learned by way of submitting 40+ job applications to universities all over the solar system (many years ago now...), the copy and paste strategy never works. Work environments want to be "courted" a bit, I think, or at least acknowledged as an individual. If the goal is to stand out, one way to do so is to let the work place know that you view them as an individual, too.
DeleteLike everyone else on here, I wrote my first (and most of honestly) my cover letters with the help of Google. I like that google categorizes each paragraph, as it helps keep the focus of each tight, similar to what was talked about in class. Google also walks the reader through exactly how a letter should look, how it's constructed, and specifics about fonts, sizes, and spacing so that the cover letter looks professional, but still is about the individual writing it. However, while google tells us to talk about us in the letter, I liked how it was explained in class more. I liked that Michelle gave us specific things to talk about in the cover letters to show what will help us go further and get us into a better chance of getting an interview on it now too.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I think google is good at giving generalizations to refresh people's memories is, say, you haven't written a cover letter in a while, but it shouldn't be a main tool people use in trying to figure out how to write one for the first time. In class or talking to someone in person or over the phone/ email who knows what they are talking about on this subject would be much more helpful, as it was for me.
Thanks, Hayley! I couldn't agree more. I think my reply comments (above) hit on most of these sentiments. Keep being an individual!
DeleteGoogle says that a good cover letter should describe the experiences and skills I have that make me relevant to the job. It also says it should be memorable, and target the employer's needs. This aligns very much with what Michelle has told us, as well as with my own experience.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the super-short response today - I'm really not 100% right now, but I figured even a couple of sentences was better than blowing off the whole thing. I'll be back in the game soon.
A lot of the job letter advice I have seen talks about relating how your strengths and experiences will become an asset to the company that you are apply to work at. Throughout job application process as a whole, it feels that this is one thing that is constantly emphasized. The job letter is going to be the first time that you think about this and it's important to get it right.
ReplyDeleteNot only do you have to research what the company wants/needs in an employee, but also what their goals are as a whole and what their values are. By writing about how these intersect with your own personal values, I feel that makes a candidate stand out. As Michelle said when we discussed resumes in class, they can't spend too much time on any one resume and a cover letter is their first impression of you.
According to Youth Central on Google, it says that to make a good cover letter you should introduce yourself and always key in the reason for your letter such as the job that you are applying for. Most times I have found that describing yourself other than just by name has helped me. I always make a point to describe that I am a college major at the University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire, and I make a point of telling what my major is so that perhaps it gives a little more info on the reason that I want to apply for this particular job. A cover letter should also include a small showcase of your skills, for example, if the job that I am applying for has to do with writing, I would be sure to say that I am passionate in writing or I have well developed skills in writing. I also have found that even tryping up a small sentence that asks the employer to accept this letter and most of the time an attached resume for consideration is also is a good rule of thumb.
ReplyDeleteThe first specific few tips from Google and a few of the sources on the first search are generally to introduce yourself, mention the job, give an overview of your skills/experience as related to the job, and a "call to action" asking for an interview. I think that a lot of these generic tips are helpful for drafting a cover letter, but beyond that there's a lot to be added or changed in order to make your own cover letter more memorable in a sea of applicants.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the most important parts of a cover letter outside of the things mentioned above that I didn't see mentioned too often in the search results is that the cover letter is a fantastic space for personalization and adaptation to the specific job being applied for--yes, you should always tailor the skills and experiences mentioned to the job at hand, but I think this is also an excellent space to make it known that you've done your research on the company/workplace that is hiring. It could just be a small comment about a company's mission statement or another detail, but I think that this personalization is really effective in writing cover letters.
Researching what a good job letter is, I found a few tips that I find to have overlooked when drafting my own letters. A few of the tips were mentioning a referral as soon as possible in the letter, making the letter more focused on what the employer wants and not what you want, and matching your experience to the job description. I think that I have always thought of showing how good of an asset you can be is showing what you are driven towards, often spending a lot of my letter talking about what I want to do with the job. Focusing more on what the employer wants and then incorporating my own skills as solutions would be a good way of branding oneself without overdoing trying to sell my skills to them. I do think that the letter should match what the job description wants, not a generic listing of skills, which is why I always try to research the organization first, although I could work on digging more into the details of the organization in future job letters. Showing the effort you put into understanding the organization and what interests you is a sure way of showing initiative as well as possibly making up for limited experience. Especially coming out of college with definitely limited experience in the job field, really showing that I understand and want to commit to a job is a great way of proving that I have what it takes for it to be my first experience in the professional world.
ReplyDeleteAs far as what Michelle has been saying in class, the tips seem to correlate with her message of not overdoing the letter. Making a resume and cover letter that is concise and highlights the main reasons you're a good candidate is key to being noticed by the employer who possibly has limited time to be picking a candidate.