Authors: Ellen Gordon Reeves
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Self Help
Can I Wear My Nose Ring to the Interview?: A Crash Course in Finding, Landing, and Keeping Your First Real Job (19 page)
Q. How do I blow my own horn without sounding conceited?
A.
It’s a question of tone and, once again, of showing, not telling. Don’t write, “You will never find a more diligent worker.” Instead, cite concrete experiences that reveal you are qualified for the job. Stick to facts, rather than your judgment of your own talents and worth. Best is to use things other people have said
about you: Quote someone or use a line from a written evaluation, review, or letter of recommendation. “In my final review, the intern coordinator told me I was the most responsible intern he’d ever seen.” Much better than “I am highly responsible.” Offer anecdotal evidence: “After setting up an event for sixty people in just a few days, I was voted assistant of the week.”
Q. I have worked in the industry. How much insider’s lingo am I allowed to use in my cover letter?
A.
Use enough to appear to be an insider, but don’t overdo it. If you sling around too many terms, you’ll sound like you’re just showing off. Refer to skills you gained and tasks you did that show you will be able to hit the ground running with minimal training. “At my most recent position as an intern at Law Inc., I researched historical antecedents, prepared case summaries, and proofread briefs.”
Even the most expressive résumé is no more than a bulleted list of accomplishments; the job of the cover letter is to make that list come alive—and in some cases, even to alter the way the reader perceives it. You must make the connections between your résumé and the job at hand. If you haven’t had direct experience in the field of magazine circulation, for instance, you might draw the link to your résumé by saying,
“My experience working in the box office of our college theater offered me insight into the importance of seeking annual subscribers.”
Sometimes a job will call on less-than-obvious skills you picked up in a variety of jobs or internships; the cover letter is a great place to bring those skills together so they paint a picture of a well-rounded candidate.
“As a competitive runner, I’ve always understood the importance of discipline. During my internship at Rogers and Sons, I was able to add to that an appreciation for detail.”
If your résumé is sparse, work concrete experiences into your cover letter. I’m convinced that unless you’ve been living in a cave doing nothing your whole life, you have useful skills—for something. If, in fact, you have been living in a cave, I could write you a great cover letter touting your survival skills, your ingenuity and initiative, and your ability to work on your own.
If it’s truly the case that you did very little except go to classes in high school and college (and maybe party, if that’s what you were doing), you’ve got to turn vice into virtue. Instead of thinking of yourself as a loser, how about presenting yourself as someone who is highly focused and can follow instructions and dedicate yourself fully to any single task at hand?
“I am a recent graduate of Smithson College. While at Smithson, I concentrated exclusively on my studies. Now I am ready to apply the rigor and discipline that marked my college career to the workplace. My longstanding interest in history led me to (your organization).”
Then mention a few courses and projects you feel are relevant to the job.
Or let’s say you’ve done “nothing” but babysit for your younger siblings. How about presenting yourself as the caretaker of the three younger children in your family, as someone with endless energy, enthusiasm, and the ability to react quickly to changing situations?
Ideally, though, what you emphasize in your cover letter should be determined by the job for which you’re applying.
Q. I’ve never worked in this industry before. Do I stand a chance? What do I write in my cover letter to convince them to at least interview me?
A.
Okay. The first thing to think about is getting an internship—paid or volunteer—or a temp position in a related company. If you’re serious about pursuing a job in this area, volunteer for an hour a week. Then you can truthfully say, “I am currently volunteering at …” or “As a temporary assistant at the Rutledge Company, I learned the basics of …” At the very least, find someone to shadow even for a day or half a day. For more on identifying this kind of opportunity, review
chapter 1
, Welcome to Job, Inc.
Employers understand that people switch careers, but since hiring someone from outside their field is risky, you have to convince them that you bring valuable skills or perspectives to the table. Be enthusiastic and confident about your prior experience—bashing the industry you’re leaving will just make you look like a whiner. And again, emphasize your transferable skills. Let’s say you’re applying to be a school-group docent in a museum and are a former camp counselor who just graduated with a B.A. in Art History. You might write: “My work as a camp counselor over the last four summers has given me extensive experience with eight- to fourteen-year-olds. On rainy days I led them in arts and crafts activities, drawing on my course work as an art-history major to come up with projects from copying Picasso’s pottery to making Jackson Pollock–like splatter paintings. I especially loved squeezing in mini-lessons on these artists. Creating curriculum and leading museum tours for middle-school groups would be a natural extension of this experience.”
If you are a recent graduate, you must convince prospective employers that you are a quick learner. You already have the advantage of being a cheaper hire, and an employer naturally wants to get the most bang for his buck.
GREAT COVER-LETTER SAMPLES
Suffering from a lack of cover-letter inspiration? Take a look at some of the following sample paragraphs, taken from real letters, to help you communicate your experience.
While these are obviously not to be plagiarized, note the basic structures and the way concrete examples are used to convey skills.
Revealing Your Skills Through Your Experience
“While interning at Pacific Pictures, I read submissions and digitally archived thousands of scripts, developing my instincts about what made for a salable project. As part of a working team, I became familiar with the day-to-day operations of a large company. At my next internship, at the County Public Defenders Office, I organized one man’s scattered medical and criminal records, which came to over a thousand pages; though it wasn’t part of my assignment, in the process I stumbled upon behavioral patterns that the public defender said helped save the defendant’s life. This year I worked as a researcher for a professor of constitutional law, independently using the offices and archives of the American Liberties Union and the Charles Law Library. I synthesized weeks of reading into a few pages on the twenty-year history of one Supreme Court case.”
Showing Ingenuity and Adaptability
“I recently completed a semester as a student-teacher at the Moses School in Nashville, an experience that honed my managerial and communication skills. As a Spanish, French, and English teacher, I brought enthusiasm and rigor to a results-oriented approach. Working with high school students taught me flexibility and calm in the face of pressure. When a lesson fell flat, I had to quickly and seamlessly readjust my plan to engage my students. I became an adaptive, improvisatory communicator—no simple task when your audience is a group of twenty restless adolescents. My approach paid off: My French and Spanish students broke into the top rankings on national exams, and each of my eleventh graders wrote and presented a fifteen-page research paper. Now I am eager to apply that drive, discipline, and creativity to a position in a fast-paced marketing department.”
Applying College and Internship Experience
“I know what a difference education can make in a person’s perception of the world, and I respect your mission. I’m a recent graduate of Greenville University, where I interned at the university press and completed an independent study in Web design. I also studied abroad in Asia, teaching English in local immigrant communities.
Of course, I understand that while missions are important, marketing is a concrete art. My internships with a literary agency, two publishing houses, and a web communications department have provided me with a diverse set of skills including:
Knowledge of targeted marketing techniques—I worked directly with the Marketing Director at Weinberg Media.
Writing experience—I drafted pitch and rejection letters, posted web articles, and wrote editorial notes and reader reports.
Administrative experience—I’ve conducted interviews and answered phones.
Familiarity with the adult-trade book market—I researched potential markets at Borders and Barnes & Noble.”
If You’re Entering a New Field …
“As you can see from my résumé, I graduated from Yorktown University in May of 2009, after which I jumped into the working world in Boston as an office assistant at Wholespring International, a European investment firm. While this is not the long-term professional setting I envision for myself, it has allowed me to work on challenging, detail-oriented projects in a multi-lingual environment. As the sole assistant to all members of the investment team, I have done everything from setting up meetings for senior associates to editing and formatting a PowerPoint presentation for the CEO’s keynote address to investors.”
