When I was trying to decide what I wanted to write about today….I came across some, how do I say it…interesting looking cover letters sent in on FoxNet.  Now this does not mean, at all, that the content was bad, but that the formatting was wayyyy off.  Cover letters are much like any formal business letter, resume, or other business document in that the formatting is just as important as the message.  A sloppily formatted cover letter gives an employer the impression that you decided not to take the 10 minutes it would take to perfect, polish and proofread that document and I know that is not the impression you want to give, furthermore not the person you are.  So we are going back to basics here…

If you want to stand out from the crowd, your cover letter should cover two important points:

• What you can do for the company
• How you can fill the company’s needs.

Send your letter to an individual, not a company. Take the time to determine the name and title of the addressee. Do not guess gender when addressing a letter. Dear Sir or Madam or Dear Hiring Manager, are not acceptable salutations.

Be sure to include a return address and telephone number. Include your street address, city, state, zip code, and telephone number. Omit your e-mail address if you do not check e-mail daily.

Address your letter to a person who can hire you: Contact the company and obtain the name and title of the person to whom to address your letter. This shows initiative and resourcefulness. It may also impress the reader with the fact that you reached them directly.

Never use all caps and do not justify the right margin. Presentation is as important an element as content and organization. Strive at all times for a professional appearance.

Use the KISS theory. Keep it short, simple, and no longer than one page. Each of the three paragraphs should have four or fewer sentences. Vary the sentence length and try to avoid either a stream of short sentences or very long sentences.

Send original letters only. A vague letter that could be sent to any employer by merely replacing the company name is called a broadcast letter. It doesn’t fool anyone.

Please remember that not every position on FoxNet requires a cover letter.  You must only send one when the job description specifically asks for one.  When you are applying to a job or internship in ANY other manner: hand delivery, other internet job search sites (e.g. monster, wetfeet.com, etc.), or company websites, it behooves you to submit a cover letter.  Just a little insider information….most hiring managers will look at your cover letter AFTER looking at your resume, not before.  So keep that in mind, if they like what they see on your resume, they may take a look at that cover letter and see if it strengthens your case for an interview.  If you suspect that there will be any question about something on your resume, including gaps in employment and lack of experience, use your cover letter to explain it.  You are selling yourself, so make sure to write that way.  If you have any questions on how to write a cover letter, please stop in the CSPD office! 

Here is a Sample Cover Letter to take a look at!!!  Remember before you submit a cover letter, please make sure it looks like the one above and includes all the information that it should!!! The few extra minutes of work will help you ten-fold in the long run.

For your entertainment….
We know none of the Fox School students would have a resume THIS bad…This video is pretty funny but it points out an important lesson you should keep in mind when writing your resume.  If you are not qualified for a position…DONT LIE (or even exaggerate)!  There have been many people,  high powered execs even, who have gotten caught up with embellishing their resume and it has come back to bite them. 

• Former Notre Dame football coach, George O’Leary, was forced to resign his $1.2 million salary in 2001 when it came to light that he had grossly overstated his past accomplishments.
• Dave Edmonson, the former Chief Exec of RadioShack resigned after questions about the accuracy of his resume.  He had claimed to two degrees which he did not have.

Now these are extreme examples, but click here to see Forbes.com list of most common resume lies.  Often times, they may be small exaggerations and may not even get caught before someone is hired.  There has been an increase in more intensive HR background checks to mitigate that problem.  As many as 40% of HR professionals have explained that they have increased their time conducting new hire background checks.

Just make sure when you are writing your resume, things are on the up and up.  All job titles, dates, and responsibilities should be completely accurate.  If there is a position that you are interested in, for which you are not qualified, do not lie, just explain in your cover letter or meeting with the employer that you personally do not have one of the skills for which they are looking, however you would be excited about the opportunity to dedicate time to obtaining this skill.  This will give the employer insight into your integrity.

By: Joe Norton 

In this post, I’m going to discuss the ”Resume Critique” portion of the CSPD Process… oh the terror…

Someone is going to tear apart your resume! How awful, right? they are going to tell you everything you formatted wrong, everything you worded poorly, and even tell you whole sections which need to be removed or added. Sounds terrible, right?

Actually… isn’t it exactly what you want? Don’t you want a recruiter, a professional resume reviewer, to critically analyze your resume and make it as good as it can possibly be? Of Course!

When I went to CSPD to get my resume critiqued I was alittle nervous but I also had the feeling I was going to do pretty good. I had worked hard on my resume and it’s subsequent re-writes and I was sure that I had honed this draft down to a science.

I waited a few minutes before being greeted by the professional recruiter, that’s one thing you must understand - CSPD gets local recruiters of prominent corporations to come in and give up some of their expensive time to help you get a job.

It wasn’t long before we were in one of CSPD’s little offices and he was going at my resume with a red pen. Sure, it was alittle gruesome to see so many red marks you’d think he was drawing a volcanic eruption - but at the same time I knew that each of those marks was him letting me know “fix this now, or pay for it later”.

He asked me a few times to discuss things on my resume, which it should go without saying - you should be able to intelligently discuss EVERYTHING on your resume. You need to be able to discuss why you transferred, what you do in so-and-so club, how you like your boss at X job, etc. It went pretty well though, I knew that he was helping me get prepared for the interviews with corporate recruiters that would really matter - this was just practice.

The critique ended well, and I had a list of slight corrections to make to my resume. He gave me his card and told me that I was welcome to send him my further revisions of the resume to perfect it more, and he wanted me to keep him informed where I got a job.

I ended up writing him back and forth a few times, sending him revised resumes and him helping me slowly get my resume to it’s ideal state. It wasn’t more than 3 versions later when he said - that’s it. It’s perfect.

All in all, the CSPD resume critique was a great experience and I made a friend of a local HR professional.

By: Joe Norton

I already have a resume, I thought to myself, what point is there in re-doing it? I had already spent considerable time putting down all my leadership roles, athletic endeavors and past work experience. I had already had this resume reviewed by several people, including my Dad who works at one of the finance firms I was hoping to get an internship with. As far as I knew I was going to sit around during this resume seminar and twiddle my thumbs waiting for the clock to tick by.

It wasn’t until the 2nd half of the double header when I learned about the fox resume, how wrong my current resume was, and why I was having such a difficult time getting past the resume drop and into the interview.. .

Recruiters get so many resumes that they go through them just looking for the ugly ones with poor formatting and immediately sort these out of the process without glancing at the content of them. I was shooting myself in the foot by using a non-standardized format I made myself. Using the Fox Signature Resume format I would have a tried and true resume format that is visually appealing and best of all it’s streamlined and efficient in displaying all the information that goes on a resume.

All the formatting of my resume was wrong, I used like 5 lines for my name, address and contact information. I had done tabs and non-traditional spacing all over in the attempt of organizing the info my own way; I didn’t realize how poorly I utilized the space on my resume till I saw the Fox Signature Resume and noticed how it fit much more content, and still looked appealing and not blocky.

In terms of content: All of my extracurricular activities were from my high school days. To my dismay, I was told that employers don’t care that I was the captain of the football team, or that I was the student council vice president in high school . Only college stuff should go on my resume, I was told. This meant about half my resume was totally based on the wrong time period.

Do What I Did, Find SPO’s you find Interesting – I decided on joining several SPO’s so I could get some relevant extracurriculars on my resume and not look like a slacker who attends class but does nothing else “productive” with my time. Once I started going to meetings I couldn’t stop because I quickly became immersed in the organizations and even ended up becoming a webmaster for one, not long after joining. Joining SPO’s for your resume alone is a waste of time I think, fortunately many of you will find that you enjoy your organization and get the opportunity to train yourself in leadership, organization and time management (more fun than it sounds) when it comes your time to take an officer position.

All of my job experience, I learned, was poorly worded and turned off recruiters. I had to re-write all of it and throw some action verbs at the start of every bullet and re-narrow the focus in explaining my experience. I realized that I really hadn’t done myself any favors with the way I had crudely described my experience. I had written the bullets in terms of what I did for the company physically, not necessarily how I added value to the company.

It took a few re-writes – but eventually I had perfected the new format and re-worded my descriptions of past job experience and I was ready for the final stage of getting the Fox Signature Resume complete – and that was the resume critique.

Get Started on Your Fox Signature Resume with the CSPD Resume Guide.
The following samples should be helpful in putting together your own resume:

Sample Resume - MIS Majors
Sample Resume - Marketing Majors
Sample Resume - Accounting Majors
Sample Resume - Human Resource Majors

Lifehacker had an interesting article about that all important document, the resume.

“Having a resume begs for you to go into that big machine that looks for relevant keywords, and begs for you to get a job as a cog in a giant machine. Just more fodder for the corporate behemoth. That might be fine for average folks looking for an average job, but is that what you deserve?“

Read full article here.

I remember walking in to get my resume critiqued at the CSPD offices. I was so proud of my resume and how good it made me look. I thought my layout was neat and my descriptions were right on. I sit down with the reviewer and I immediately saw the red pen in her hand ravage my resume. I guess perfection is only in the eye of the beholder, aye? The only eye you should be concerned with though, is that potential employer’s. So, rewrites are key and… inevitable.

If you can’t back up what you write on your resume in the interview, why write it? I think the best advice I’ve received about the resume writing process is that every word you put on that piece of paper is a gateway to about a dozen questions. Be sure that document reflects exactly who you in multiple ways. Example: We are all responsible to some degree because of tasks xyz, but what else? Your resume shouldn’t present yourself as one dimensional.

Be honest.

I can’t imagine what it would be like if I had to start my resume from scratch. Writing your resume is a long process. You shouldn’t be finished after just one draft. Talk to people, especially the people you’ve worked with: you might be overlooking important responsibilities, character traits or specific details about the company/organization. Read it over and after you’re finished, read it again.

Download the CSPD resume guide here.