Lesson for Week 3: Day 1
3:1Revise one of two letters and send it to me with comments, create a blog entry on taco shells and labeling, read “Readers,” “Application Letters,” and “Interviewing for a Job” in HTW. Read Mathes and Stevenson on audience and read Shriver on three models of the audience analysis (both linked in last lesson), to summarize information from your interview, and to write a first draft of your letter of application.
Here are a few hints for writing letters of application. If possible, find the name of the person you are writing to and use it in the inside address and the salutation. Use the colon after the salutation because this is formal discourse.
In your first paragraph tell the reader what job you are applying for and where you found out about it. If someone recommended that you apply, you might consider saying something like, "So and So from your advertising department told me about this position and suggested that I apply" but only if you think the connection may be to your advantage. Normally a good introductory paragraph will make a claim about your belief in your ability to contribute to company and to perform the job duties well.
I normally think of the body of a letter of application as having two middle paragraphs, especially when the letters are from students looking for their first professional position. In that case, the first paragraph is usually about your education, about the kinds of things you learned and the kinds of projects you worked on. Details are good because the "show" the reader what you can do. That way you don't have to rely on making claims about how good you are. The paragraph might make a modest claim in the topic sentence, something like, "I believe my education in Astro Physics (whatever) has given me the knowledge and skills needed to do this job well." The rest of the paragraph would give some for instances.
The next paragraph would talk about job experience relevant to the new job, if you have any. If you don't, you can make the first body paragraph about the knowledge you've gained through your courses, and the second about the skills you've developed through projects and internships.
The final paragraph points to the resume, requests and interview, and tells the reader how to get in touch with you.
The primary principles involved with writing a resume are (1) scannability, (2) most important to least important pattern, (3) reverse chronology, (4)action or position, and (5) conciseness.
Scannability means that a reader can glance at your resume and get the gist of it in 30 seconds or less. That means you have to make good use of headings, boldface, white space, indentation (document design in general, see Lesson 4.1). Certain things need to stand out: the titles of your jobs, the work responsibilities or actions you performed in those jobs, your edcuational institution and degree, your contact information. It is common in this genre for your contact information to be at the top of the resume in the "heading."
Order of importance. The principle of least important to most important applies to the larger sections of the resume. What is going to get you the job? If it is your experience, then the first major section of the resume should be headed "Professional Experience." If it is your education, then the first major section should be "Education."
This principle also applies to the ordering of information within each entry. All job entries should be in the same pattern, but you should ask yourself, "which information about jobs does the reader want to know most?" Put that information first. In my opinion, potential employers want to know what experience you've had (job titles) more so than who you worked for or when. Therefore, I would recommend that each job entry start with the job title (perhaps in bold), followed by the employer's name and address, followed by the inclusive dates. After that material, I would break out the specific tasks or duties performed.
Reverse chronology applies to entries within the major sections. Under Education, the first entry should be your most recent school experience. You should work back to earlier higher education experiences, but normally you don't need to include high school. Under professional experience, your most recent job is listed first. Then you work your way back in time.
Action over positon. We all want a good position, but employers want people who work. We like the idea of sitting in glory; they like the idea of seeing someone busily engaged. Therefore, the resume (and the letter) should be full of action verbs rather than condition verbs. You should avoid forms of the verb "to be" as much as possible and use verbs that end in -ed as much as possible (they tend to be action verbs).
Conciseness. There are some things that commonly show up in resumes that are better left off. Normally you should leave off the job objective, a category that often starts the resume. These statements are either to vague to be useful or so specific that they exclude you from jobs you would take. Also a category titled personal interests or hobbies should be excluded. However, it is a good idea to have a line that says "References available upon request."
Here are a couple other sites that give more information, and better:
http://www.jobstar.org/tools/resume/index.cfm
http://www.careerjournal.com/jobhunting/resumes/index.html
1. Based on the readings for today and my notes, open your letter of application that you wrote for today and use the comment function (see notes below to see how to do this) to comment on your letter from the reader's perspective. In these comments, demonstrate that you have read the assigned material by referring to specific concepts from the reading, something like, "I think this sentence is likely to appeal to someone in the role (using Mathes and Stevenson's system) of personnel director because . . ." or "Here, I create an identification (based on Burke's idea) with the reader. I believe this is identification because it shows that I share the same basic values of a person who is working in the field of YY." Save the document with your comments and send it to me as an email attachment.
If the icon is not on your tool bar, go to the "View" option on the toolbar and activate the drop down menu. Click on the toolbar option and then select "Reviewing" option. A new tool bar with the icon will come up. Sometimes you have to click on the down arrows of the "view" drop down menu to find the toolbar option. Sequence again is View>Toolbars>Reviewing.
3. For next time, read chapters 4 and 5 in Lambrecht's Dinner at the New Gene Cafe. In chapater 5 there is a brief discussion of salmon and jumping genes (87-88). Here is an interesting story about contamination caused by salmon farms from The Chronicle of Higher Education (April 22, 2005). It doesn't mention GMOs, but it does talk about farm fish escaping into the wild and about the weakening of the gene pool among wild salmon. Here is a Executive Summary a study on food safety by a consumer's group looking at GM foods.
4. Go to Monster.com. They usually have advice on how to be effective in your job search, and I have often found good samples of letters and resumes on their site. Start playing around with making your resume. Here is a copy of a letter done for this class and also a resume.