Cover Letter and Resume Directions

When you apply for a job, you frequently send a cover letter and a resume to your potential employer. The cover letter introduces you and your purpose. It summarizes your strengths and experience. Your resume is a detailed, usually reverse chronological, outline of your background and work experience. Of course, the object of both the cover letter and the resume is to stimulate interest in you. Because the employer often receives many cover letters and resumes, yours should stand out. Accordingly, the stronger cover letters and resumes not only contain no errors but are also succinct and interesting to read.

Having just read Of Mice and Men, a work that deals with each man's search for the American dream, and moving on from Mirman in just a short time, you should be thinking about your future. With that said, you will be composing your own cover letter and resume. This will require you to imagine the type of employment you might seek upon graduation from college or after. Use the models provided but follow the requirements below.

Cover Letter

1. One page
2. Single spaced
3. Standard business letter format
4. State your objective
5. Indicate why the organization appeals to you
6. State why you are right for the organization
7. Briefly summarize related experience
8. Indicate your resume is attached
9. Request an interview or follow-up

Resume (remember reverse chronological order)

1.  Name, address, phone number and email address
2. Career objective
3. Previous work experience (minimum of two), including dates, places of employment, titles, responsibilities
4. Educational background
5. Achievements
6. Relevant interests and hobbies
7. Single-spaced
8. One page

Keep in mind, your cover letter and resume are supposed to make you stand out from the crowd. Be inventive, creative, original. Use a graphic, a border, colored paper. Consider using different size type, different fonts, different effects.

The rough draft of your cover letter and resume will be due on Tuesday, September 8, 2009.

For the final, you are to add graphics and anything else to make it creative. Do not staple the final copy because Mrs. Zinman may want to put it on the board side by side.

The final draft of your cover letter and resume will be due on Friday, September 25, 2009.