
Resume and Cover Letters
Two of the most crucial documents that job seekers need to present is a resume and a cover letter. Take a look at the tabs below to learn about the process of writing an effective resume and a succinct cover letter.
Your resume is your pitch to a potential employer and where you get to showcase your skills and achievements. Something to remember is that hiring managers and recruiters are flooded with hundreds and maybe even thousands of resumes which means that they only take a few seconds to scan and evaluate your application materials.
Let’s go over all the ways to help maximize your resume’s impact by keeping it brief, concise, and focused on the employer.
General Tips
- To save time, create a Master Resume. Before the job hunt, create a Master Resume that contains all of your education, skills, and experience as your main reference document. When you’re ready to start, create a copy of your Master Resume and tailor your new copy to different job postings by removing irrelevant details and aligning your resume to that specific opportunity.
- Whenever you send in your resume, always send it as a PDF. This ensures that the formatting remains consistent.
- Make sure that you name the PDF in a clear and consistent way: your name, job title, and ID number if applicable. This makes it easier for the hiring manager to identify or find your application.
- Use quality print paper. If you need to submit your resume on paper (standard letter size), be sure to print it on quality paper. Use subtle white, ivory, or light grey paper and use the same paper for all materials
- Be wary of resume builders. Templates from services that offer to build your resume tend to bloat your resume by adding in a lot of unnecessary components, fancy coloring palettes, and two-column formatting — all of which make it difficult for company applicant tracking systems to read.
- Proofread, proofread, proofread!
Guides and Resources
For a deep dive into the resume writing process, check out our resources below:
The purpose of a cover letter is to help contextualize your work experience. More importantly, hiring managers use the cover letter to gauge your written communication skills and gain a little insight to who you are.
Generally, it is common practice to provide a custom cover letter alongside a resume for every application. In fact, a recent 2023 survey of 625 hiring managers across the nation from small to big businesses reports that 83% reading about 50% – 100% of the cover letters they receive.
However, a cover letter takes time to make and should be written with careful attention. So, how do we write cover letter that both succinct and less time-consuming?
Guides and Resources
Let’s go over the steps that you can take to give your resume and application the boost it needs to stand out from the rest:
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