Project: Résumé and Letter of Application

100 Points

In this two-part assignment you are to write a résumé and a letter of application for submission to a prospective employer. Whether these two items are sent via regular mail, faxed, or as e-mail attachments, you should prepare them as indicated below, unless the instructions given in your job advertisement tell you otherwise.

For this exercise, you will be preparing your résumé and letter of application as if you were applying for a job in the formal, conventional way using snail mail.

I recommend that you make this assignment practical, especially if you are in your senior year and close to graduation. If you are, you will soon be in the job hunt, and the assignment will give you good practice.

Résumé

Develop a résumé that is appropriate to the position for which you are applying. Your résumé, presented in reverse chronological order, should conform to one of the standard formats in common use. Like the models that we provide in Chapter Seven of the online manual, your résumé must be limited to a single page and include text enhancements that give it a professional look.

Chances are that you will be looking for an entry-level job, one that requires no experience or special training. However, for this assignment you may fib in one essential way: you may use the fiction that you have either already earned your degree or that you expect to receive your degree at the end of the current semester. Everything else you include must be verifiably true.

Letter of Application

Write a letter of application to the prospective employer for a position you would like to have and for which you have designed your résumé. You may respond to an advertisement for employment from the classified section of any newspaper, magazine, or online source.

Online sources are invaluable. Professional organizations associated with your major may maintain Web sites with helpful, job-search links. Of particular value is http://www.monster.com/, which I urge you to visit. In addition, many major newspapers have online classifieds, and many specific businesses, non-profit or not-for-profit organizations, and governmental agencies include information about their job openings on their Web sites.

Whatever the source, the advertisement must provide enough detail about the position to give you a solid base of information. Most importantly, it should tell you what the job requires in terms of your experience and educational achievements.

If you are applying for a job that requires experience that you actually do have, fine, but you must be completely honest. Do not respond to an ad that requires you to make something up to suit the job’s eligibility guidelines.

Whether you are applying for an entry-level job or one that requires prior experience, you should follow the guidelines given in Chapter 7.

Submission

When you turn in your résumé and letter of application, you must include the original or a photocopy or printout of the job advertisement. An ms. copy of your résumé is not required, just a c-r version. However, you must include both an ms. and a c-r copy of your letter of application. And don't forget the cover page.