Assignment: Resume and Cover Letter
- Assignment: Resume and Cover Letter
The primary purpose of the cover letter is to summarize your relevant experience and convey your interest and fit for the job. Ultimately, the cover letter is aimed at getting employers to look at your resume. The primary purpose of a resume is to persuade prospective employers to grant you an interview. For this Assignment, you will create a resume and cover letter. Review this week’s Learning Resources, as well as the following instructions before submitting your resume and cover letter.
Resumes
It is important to always have a current working resume. As you accomplish tasks and acquire skills, you can always add to it. As employers read your resume, they will look for how your skills, knowledge, and abilities apply to the job in question. Thus, you must document your achievements in a way that will show their applicability to the job. Otherwise, you run the risk of potential employers rejecting your application because they do not see the connection between your achievements and the job.
Before you write your resume:
- Know your qualifications. Have a clear indication of the skills that might be valuable to employers.
- Know as much as you can about the prospective employer’s job description and selection criteria. If you don’t have this information because you don’t have a specific job in a specific organization in mind, at least know as much as you can about the skills and aptitudes involved in the type of job you are looking for.
- Rank your qualifications in order of their importance to the job you desire.
How to create your resume:
Your resume should answer the following questions:
- What do I want from this job? This is answered in your career objectives.
- Why should you be considered for this job? This is answered in the educational history and work experience sections.
- There are hundreds (or thousands) of ways to put together a resume, so just consider these to be basic guidelines, and review the Learning Resources for examples. Review Table 4.3 in the Course Text for a list of resume preparation tips.
Cover Letters
Should a cover letter always accompany your resume? The jury is currently out on this question; different employers have different things to say about cover letters. For a professional job, it is best practice to always include a cover letter even if it doesn’t state to do so in the application directions. If you decide that a cover letter is necessary for a particular job, or if the employer specifically asks for one, consider these general guidelines:
- Your cover letter should not only introduce but also complement your resume.
- The letter should not tell too much about you personally; rather, it should highlight those aspects in your resume that pertain to the position for which you are applying.
- It should be as specific and as concise as possible.
- A cover letter should:
- Refer to the specific position for which you are applying.
- Briefly state how the position fits with your career objectives.
- Convey your interest in the position you want as well as your interest in and knowledge of the organization itself.
- Be designed to direct the employer to those points in your resume that relate to the position you want.
- Include a mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address where you can be reached.
The cover letter may be the single most important piece of information you share with employers, and it says a lot about your writing style: Is it organized? Does it make sense? Is it concise, or does it contain rambling language? When possible, ask someone to proofread your cover letter before sending it.
Assignment:
For this Assignment, create a 1-page cover letter and 1-page resume tailored to the job you posted about in this week’s Discussion. Use the examples in Chapter 4 for formatting ideas.
Combine your resume and cover letter into one document before submitting to the link.
Note: For information regarding how your Assignment will be evaluated, please review the grading rubric located in the Course Information area of the course.
By Day 7
Submit one document that contains both your cover letter and resume.
Submission and Grading Information
To submit your completed Assignment for review and grading, do the following:
- Please save your Assignment using the naming convention “WK2Assgn+last name+first initial.(extension)” as the name.
- Click the Week 2 Assignment Rubric to review the Grading Criteria for the Assignment.
- Click the Week 2 Assignment link. You will also be able to “View Rubric” for grading criteria from this area.
- Next, from the Attach File area, click on the Browse My Computer button. Find the documents you saved as “WK2Assgn+last name+first initial.(extension)” and click Open.
- If applicable: From the Plagiarism Tools area, click the checkbox for I agree to submit my paper(s) to the Global Reference Database.
- Click on the Submit button to complete your submission.
Grading Criteria
To access your rubric:
Week 2 Assignment Rubric
Check Your Assignment Draft for Authenticity
To check your Assignment draft for authenticity:
Submit your Week 2 Assignment draft and review the originality report.
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