Category: Employment

Employments covers the self-employed business person and/or entrepreneur as well as salaried individuals working on various shifts, including the standard “9 to 5” shift. Transitioning from employed to self-employed is one of the biggest hurdles to folks owning and operating their own business; the others being start-up capital and an operating budget.

Buttress Your Resume with a Cover Letter


Importance of the cover letter

Most of us, when preparing a resume, devote a lot of time to making that resume the very best because of its significance to, and representative of us as individuals and potential employees of the company to which the resume is sent. What some job seekers fail to do however, is to send a cover letter along with their resumes; and while the reasons for excluding a cover letter may vary, such exclusion often reduces the chances that your well-formatted, well-written resume will ever get reviewed.

We must understand the importance of having a cover letter for the simple reason that without one, we defeat the purpose of preparing and sending out the resume in the first place. It is a known fact that job seekers who omit a cover letter from their job applications appear unprofessional to potential employers; but those who include a well-written, personalized cover letter allow potential employers to get an insight into who they are, how they communicate and how they present themselves as professionals.

Buttressing your resume

If you are in search of a particular job or position and sending your resume via email, the cover letter can be included in the body of the email or sent in an attachment, if the employer accepts such attached documents (most employers prefer not to receive attached documents), but the important thing to do is make sure a cover letter is sent along with your resume; and even if you are faxing or sending your resume by regular USPS mail, make sure that the cover letter serves as an introduction to the resume.

While cover letters can take various forms, there are a few basic guidelines that should be adhered to when preparing one for yourself. Please continue.

Knowing the goal of your cover letter

Know what the goal of your cover letter is, and express it clearly and concisely. Sell yourself in the best possible light; make sure also, that you sound confident and professional in your cover letter. Concentrate on the positives while highlighting those qualifications that make you a perfect candidate for the job; and even if you feel insecure about your qualifications, or think that you may be slightly under-qualified for the job, use your best interpretation of the qualifications.

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Addressing and customizing the cover letter

Address your cover letter to the appropriate person. The biggest mistake some professionals make is not taking the time to address their cover letter to the appropriate person, such as the recruiter or the hiring manager. Take the time to address your cover letter to the appropriate person; if the job description does not include a person as a contact, take queue from the text and address the letter to the team listed as the contact. Using generic lines, such as “To whom it may concern,” is not acceptable on a cover letter.

Customize your cover letter to the position you are applying for. It is very important that your cover letter address why you are the best person for the job you are seeking. This includes indicating the job title in your cover letter. Generic statements, or statements indicating that you are interested in any open position with the company, make you appear unprofessional and unprepared.

A strong close to your cover letter

Answer these two questions: why do you want this particular job? And, what can you do for the company? These two questions must be addressed in the cover letter in order to let your employer know that you are serious about your interests, and that you have considered the opportunity, how it fits with your professional goals, and what you are willing to bring to the table in order to benefit the organization you want to work for.

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Proof your cover letter. Errors and misspellings leave a poor impression on any employer.

Close the cover letter by indicating to your potential employer when you intend to follow up on your application. Do not end the letter with a statement that leaves it up to the employer to call you at their convenience. Let the employer know that you want to follow up, when you will follow up, and how you will do so. This confirms your interest in the position, and your professional etiquette. Note, you must follow up when and how you indicate on the cover letter.

How to Make Your Resume Scanner-friendly


Resume meets scanner

In this era of technology-driven industries and speedy, high powered communication tools, most job applications are done electronically, and most employers – no matter the job level – request a resume from job applicants. That having been said, we must be mindful of the extremely time consuming task these employers have in reviewing so many resumes. However, when we learn that employers don’t actually review every resume they receive, it begins to make sense that they would want to review resumes from various candidates for their job offers.

In this day and age companies use various types of software to scan the resumes they receive for key words and content specific to their available positions, especially the first round of resume review. In other words, if you are a job applicant who submit a resume to one of these employers, your resume must first make it pass a computer-generated scan before it can into the hands of a hiring manager, or other decision-making department head. So the number of resumes submitted to that potential employer is less problematic than we think.

Now that we’ve settled that question, think about your own well-formatted, well-written resume to which you’ve devoted so much time in perfecting. There is one more question you have to answer about your awesome resume: Is it scan-friendly? The answer to this question may lie in the number (or lack) of calls you’ve received from from potential employers, despite your excellent qualifications for the job. Put another way, your resume might not be scan-friendly; so take a look at the following tips for making your resume scan-friendly:

Making the resume scanner-ready

Special Formatting – Any kind of formatting that is not standard could cause certain letters to touch and blend into one character. This is especially true if a word is bold or italicized; so make sure that you review your resume and revise any parts where letters are joined together, so that the words can be scanned.

Font Type and Size – Since the type and size of your fonts are very important for both your printed and electronic resume when being scanned, it is important that the font is recognizable by the software; so stick to basic fonts, such as Ariel and Times New Roman. Also use standard font sizes such as 10 or 12 point.

about resumes, cover letters and interviews

Underlined Words and Phrases – In an electronic format, underlined words/phrases implies links to other documents and/or a web sites. Another feature that must be avoided is lines in the resume that touch the text, as this will prevent your resume from being scanned properly.

Alignment – All the text in your resume should read from left to right so that your resume can be properly scanned. Your should also avoid special formatting such as tables and columns within your electronic resume document.

Fine tuning resume before submission

Special Characters – Special characters may not be recognized by scanning software and could therefore render your resume useless to the employer. Special formatting such as bullets, use of ampersands, percent signs, copyright signs, or any other characters that may not be easily recognizable by scanning software should be removed. If you are quantifying information on your resume, make sure to spell out the percentage instead of using “%” as you are indicating increase in sales, for example. Whenever possibly, avoid using signs or special characters in your resume.

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Numbered Pages – Even if you submit a printed resume, the document may still be scanned for key words to match your qualifications with available positions, so it is very important that your submission is on plain white paper and in basic font type and size. If you are submitting multiple pages, make sure that all the pages are numbered, and have your name in the top left corner. Do not staple multiple pages, because doing so will prevent all pages, except the top page, from being scanned.

Keywords and Power Words – The most important element of a scan-friendly resume is the selection of active keywords and power words. Do your research and make sure that you use the appropriate keywords which are relevant to the position you are seeking in your resume. Having appropriate keywords throughout your resume makes it easier for the software to find matches when scanning the document.

Research and review

Helpful tip: review the employer’s job requirements for keywords, and find out what the required qualifications for the job are, so you can make sure that your resume contains the same terminology as that on the job description, without direct copying from the text. When your functional resume is scanned the software will pick up these key words and you will be one step closer to landing your dream job.

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