From the One Minute How-To podcast, hosted by George Smyth, Patrick Fogarty explains how you can maximize the chances of getting that interview with a properly written cover letter.
Address your cover letter to the recipient by name...
If the name is unavailable, use one of the greetings in Example #2 and add this personal note.
Please Note: I'm sorry for this impersonal greeting on my cover letter. I was unable to get your name online. However, I look forward to the opportunity to meet you in person so I can address you by name and discuss this job opening. I am highly interested in working for {company name}.
CrossRoads Newsletter and Career Development Center: "care"
Most people already know a targeted resume can be the first step toward finding a good job. It provides employers with their first introduction to you and is often the ticket to landing an interview. Your cover letter is equally important, because it provides you with the opportunity to explain in greater detail and by using examples of why you are the best person for the position. It's not the place for declaring your personal agenda.
A job hopeful seeking a public-relations position requiring strong writing skills listed in her cover letter a few magazines she'd written for, adding: 'I think my best work sample is a novel I've just finished writing. I'm attaching the first chapter. I think you'll agree that I'm as original as a writer can be.'
Attaching a work sample is not unusual for a writer, but in this case the hiring manager may wonder if she's more interested in finding a publisher than landing a PR job."
read more
Tip of the Day: Blog your way to Job Search success!
(Original post is located here.)
While there are many blogging tools out there, I find that I have become very fond of the free
BLOGGER service for most of my blogging needs, ever since Google acquired them and added the Blog button to the Google Toolbar. What this does is allow you to add web pages, with comments, directly to your blog from whatever site you are on with the push of a button.
For example, suppose you see a job listing in your local newsgroup.
The logical thing to do would be to go to the employer's site and see whether or not the job is listed there. Now here's where Blogging can come in handy. Say you are ready to apply for the job immediately - it's easy enough just to send in your resume and store all of the information in your Jobfiler job tracker. But suppose you aren't ready to apply - you need to revise your resume, or get your cover letter in order, or simply think about it. If you had a job search related Blog, you would simply blog that page, add whatever notes you want to associate with that job, and post it to your blog. Your blog would then become a running job search diary, which you can even add follow up comments to any single entry.
Some things to consider... if you are blogging your job search for your own records, it's important to set up the blog as PRIVATE (not publically available). Of course, there are folks who blog their search publically, but that's really a judgement call on your part. Anything you post in the public domain could come back to bite you. Read this article on Blogger about the guy that got fired over his blog.
How-To's (skip this if you're not trying to set your blog to Private)When you create your account on Blogger , you can specify whether the blog is public or private. If you mark it as "Private" and want to keep it that way, you should also add the robots meta tag in the header of your template (and if you FTP to your own directory, placing the robots.txt file in the root is also a good idea). And of course, set your options on Blogger to Ping Weblogs = No.
Here are some sample jobsearch blogs which I have found on the web:
Trey's Job Search
All About Jen
Mike McBride: Life of a one-man IT Department
On a related note, here are some jobsearch information blogs, offering advice, articles, etc.
The Job Files
http://bostonworks.boston.com/blog/
Not Working for a Living
The Monster Blog
Being Bold
And for those of you who would like an alternative solution to Blogger, here are some other ways to get your blog up and running in a short amount of time:
BBlog
Square Space
eBloggy
Good luck, and happy hunting!
Resume and Cover Letter Guide
About.com has some excellent articles on resume writing, job search methods and more.
Job Search Tracking - Keeping It All Straight
Does anyone else remember a time when you send in a resume and literally count the minutes between the time it was sent and the phone ringing? Well, back in the day, it was just not as difficult to track the old job search. A binder, a spreadsheet, even your Sent Mail folder would do.
When I embarked upon my most recent job search, just over a year ago, I realized that none of these methods were quite right. I kept
bookmarking job descriptions on the big job boards, only to go back later to find they had been removed. In order to better track the specifics of the jobs I was applying to, I ended up developing a very simple web-based job tracking system where I could store all of the job related information in one place (including the resume and cover letter I sent it), and retrieve it on demand. After using the application for several months, I turned it into a free public job portal so that anyone can use it.
With all of the job related web sites out there, I'm surprised that no one has done this until now. The closest thing I've seen has been on private career center sites which provide some job search tools for their paid clientele. Other than that, there are some sites that let you track the jobs you applied to through their interface, but none of them let you track all of your job inquiries, regardless of source. If you've seen anything else like it out there, please let me know. Also, if you'd like to share how you're tracking your current job search, please add a comment below.
"Your cover letter presents your intentions, qualifications and availability to a prospective employer in a succinct and appealing format. As your first chance to make a great impression, a personalized letter indicates you are serious about your job search. Your resume can give the nitty-gritty of dates, places of employment and education, but your cover letter must entice the reader to consider you amidst hundreds, or even thousands, of candidates for any one job opening." read more...
Yahoo! Dailytips - Uncovering a Cover Letter Myth
Your cover letter summarizes your resume, right? Wrong! Some people think that a summary of the resume attached to the resume seems a little repetitive. The purpose of your cover letter, then, is to add a warm handshake to your resume and zero in on why the employer should be interested in you. Your cover letter should put your resume in context, drawing attention to your strengths and present nonresume material that can make a difference between you and your next closest competitor when the interviewing decision is made.
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