During the Employment Project, you will learn strategies for seeking and securing employment or an internship, with particular attention to the documents people normally use to represent themselves and their prospects to potential employers. This project asks you to work individually, but there will also be chances for you to work with your peers to exchange ideas and feedback in your blogs.
Locate a real and specific job or internship for which you are qualified and prepare the application materials for it. If you already have a good job, find one that would be an advance for you, then prepare application materials for that position. Step 1 of the project asks you to learn about and use various web-based resources for job seekers and ultimately to select one real job to pursue. Step 2 asks you to prepare the all-important cover letter (i.e., "Job Application Letter"). Step 3 asks you to prepare a print resume suitable for such a position. In Step 4, you will assess your experience in a "Project Assessment Document." In the process of completing each step, you will work closely with your peers and your instructor to shape your writing so that it represents you and your experience fully and effectively.
This project emphasizes several important goals that all professional writers should bear in mind and that are consistent with those of the Professional Writing Program at Purdue. In the Employment Project, you will learn to shape your writing for very specific situations and purposes:
Writing in Context
Project Management
Document Design
Make rhetorical design decisions about workplace documents, including
Teamwork
Learn and apply strategies for successful teamwork and collaboration, such as
Research
Understand and use various research methods to produce professional documents, including
Step 1: Skills Inventory, Job Description and Job Ad Analysis . Start this step by completing the Job Search Activity 12-1 (p. 221) in The Thomson Handbook. In a blog post, respond to each of the questions with a few sentences, or a list. Then, using the resources listed on page 222 of The Thomson Handbook ("Using Print, Campus and Internet Resources"), find two job ads, produce an exact copy of each, then select one that you would apply for. Put the ads in a blog post. Then do some analysis and reflection, In a separate blog entry respond to the Job Ad Analysis form. Your skills inventory, job announcement, job ad analysis response, and cover note should all be posted by the dates listed on the course calendar.
Step 2: Job Application Letter. The job application letter is critical to your efforts to secure a job, perhaps as critical as your resume itself. For Project 1, your letter should be no longer than one or two pages (one is preferable in most cases), following the suggestions and models discussed during class. You should submit the draft of your application letter to your blog for peer review by midnight on Friday, February 1. Your letter should be attached to a blog post that includes a cover note that follows guidelines for Eliciting Good Response and the PDF version of the letter. (Read these directions for converting your documents to PDF format if you have any questions about the process.) Use the tag "Job Application letter." See the calendar for Week 3 for additional details. Review the sample in The Thomson Handbook, p 225. Your letter should be context-specific and should contain the required five parts (heading, greeting, opening, persuasion, closing) in the format shown.
Step 3: Print-Based Resume. Your printable resume (one or more pages in length, depending upon the type of job and the depth of your experience) should adapt features drawn from the samples discussed in class or available for review at the Online Writing Lab. It's critical that you shape your resume to the specific job or internship you have chosen to apply for (that it's suited to the context), so be sure to include only the relevant aspects of your professional experience. As in the Job Application Letter, your writing needs to be error-free, concise, and presented in an easily readable format. Draft due for peer review: Wednesday, February 6, by midnight. Your resume draft should be posted to your blog as a PDF attachment to a blog message that explains the nature of the attachment and invites peer feedback. Read these directions for converting your documents to PDF format if you have any questions about the process. You should also review the principles, guidelines, and resume samples in The Thomson Handbook (Chapter 12, pages 226-232). Pay special attention to the Project Checklist "Evaluating Your Resume's Content" and "Evaluating Your Resume's Design" on pages 228-229. Ask yourself these questions as you prepare your final draft.
Step 4: Project Assessment Document: As you near the end of your work on the Employment Project (and no later than February 13, prepare a 500-word overview and analysis of your deliverables and the process you used to complete them. Your Project Assessment Document should answer most of the following questions, each of which is tied to the major goals of the assignment:
Writing in Context
How did the particular job you applied for affect how you wrote your letter? Did it change or affect how you presented yourself? How did applying for this position help you understand aspects of your experience you might need to develop more?
Project Management
What was the most challenging document to produce and why? Briefly describe and explain one of the significant revisions you made to this document after your initial draft.
How well did you plan your work on this project? What might you have done differently?
Research
Which research resource proved to be the most beneficial for you? The least? Explain. What did you learn about the particular job field before composing your application letter?
Teamwork
What was one way that peer feedback helped you improve your work? How did responding to the work of others help you improve your own work?
Document Design
What is the most effective aspect of your deliverables in terms of presentation or design? Have you deliberately adapted a standard form in an unusual or creative way? If so, why?
Your Project Assessment Document is due when you turn in your completed Employment Project on February 13 by midnight.
Completing Your Project: By February 13, post to your blog a cover note for your final drafts of your cover letter and resume. Your cover note should include links to your Step 1 and Step 4 documents as well. Read these directions for converting your documents to PDF format if you have any questions about the process.
The Employment Project is worth 25% of your course grade.
When grading your project, your instructor will pay particular attention to see whether you have effectively adapted your documents to the job for which you have applied. Your writing will need to be precise, accurate, and well-suited to the context (the job/field) and to the rhetorical occasion (in terms of tone, style, and content). In this case, a generic, catch-all resume and cover letter will not satisfy the requirements of the project.
You will have opportunities to revise your work throughout the process and will be permitted to revise once again after receiving your grade on the project, subject to these restrictions: 1) Your revision should be substantial (a few fixes alone are not enough to raise a grade); 2) you turn in your completed revision within one week of the date it was returned to you with a grade; 3) you include submission notes that specify precisely what you did to improve your work, including whether or not you made use of the OWL's online or on-site tutoring.
Before you decide on a job ad, make sure that it provides you with sufficient information about the ideal candidate for the company or organization. A primary objective of this assignment is to tailor your employment documents to the specific needs of the employer. If your ad does not give you sufficient information about your potential employer’s needs, the objective of the project is defeated before you have even begun. If you are uncertain whether or not your job ad is appropriate, do not hesitate to ask.
For this assignment, you must have a keen awareness of what your potential employer needs in an applicant, and you must create a professional identity that proves you can fulfill and exceed these expectations.
Some answers require a paragraph of 4-6 sentences while others require a short answer or a list. The short answer will be a sentence or two. The list will be a list of keywords or terms. See parentheses after each question to know if you should respond with a paragraph, short answer, or list. Ultimately, these paragraphs will make it easier to draft and complete your job application letter, as well as your resume.
Reflection
1. Why did you choose this job ad? Do you feel that you are qualified for the position? (paragraph)
2. How long has the ad been posted? If it has been posted for a long period of time, are you sure that the position is still available? How? (short answer)
3. Where is the company located? Are you willing to move if it is out of state or in a foreign country? (short answer)
4. Why is living in the area that the company is located appealing to you? (paragraph)
Job Ad Analysis
1. What skills is your prospective employer seeking, from most important to least important? (list)
2. What exceptional skills do you have that prove you to be
invaluable to this company or organization? Remember that your resume is not a record of what you’ve done, but a persuasive document that proves indisputably that you are the best person for the job. (list)
3. As an exercise, list the skills, professional experience, personality traits, etc., the job ad is asking for in the left column, and in the right, write paragraphs that elaborate on and illustrate your skills, experience, etc.
| Your prospective employer (list) | You (paragraphs) |
History of the Company / Organization
1. Did you know anything about the company before you saw the job ad? (short answer)
2. Does the company have a website? What is the URL? (short answer)
3. What is the mission statement of the company? (paragraph)
4. What are keywords on the website that you can use in your cover letter and interview? (list)
5. Write a few sentences about the history of the company. Remember that it is essential for you to learn as much about the company as possible; you can use such knowledge for your cover letter and interview. (paragraph)
6. Based on your research, what is your personal sense about the company? What do you feel the company values? (paragraph)
7. Does Purdue’s Center for Career Opportunities have a networking system with this company? (short answer)
8. Do you have any personal connections to this company? Do you know anyone who works there? Does anyone in your family or friends of your family work there? (short answer)
In composing your response, you might find it easier to first just to go through and address all the questions on a sheet of paper or in a document file. Your tone should be informal but professional and not overly casual. A friendly voice in feedback is good; many writer's are more comfortable at accepting cricitism of their work when it come from a good-natured, sympathetic responder.
Also, when talking about specific areas of the author's text, be sure to include specific quotation within your feedback. Take advantage of the fact that you can easily copy and paste to point directly to what you are referring to from the draft. (Try using Firefox or Safari's "tabbed browsing" to keep multiple windows easily available during this type of peer review.).
In composing your response, you might find it easier to first just to go through and address all the questions on a sheet of paper or in a document file. Your tone should be informal but professional and not overly casual. A friendly voice in feedback is good; many writer's are more comfortable at accepting cricitism of their work when it come from a good-natured, sympathetic responder.
Also, when talking about specific areas of the author's text, be sure to include specific quotation within your feedback. Take advantage of the fact that you can easily copy and paste to point directly to what you are referring to from the draft. (Try using Firefox or Safari's "tabbed browsing" to keep multiple windows easily available during this type of peer review.).
The form of Project 2 is the white paper, a common report genre in the professional world. White papers are used in business, industrial, and governmental contexts to sum up the gist of what’s known about a subject and sometimes to market a specific product. During this project you will learn about
At the beginning of this project, you will be placed by your instructor into a group with fellow students. Each of the major components of this project will be completed in collaboration with group members. Individuals must also keep a project log at their course blog following these guidelines. Everyone will also be asked to email a peer collaborative evaluation form (Word format) independently to the instructor when Project 2 is due. To find out more about the purpose and form of white papers, see Writing Effective White Papers.
Discussion
You'll spend some time in the early part of the project reading sample white papers and about electronic communication and new Web technologies so that you can get comfortable with the genre and the general topic. You will see that although you may not be that familiar with new forms of communication technologies yet, you'll learn about it quickly. In fact, you already know much more about it than you realize since this English 420S website uses Drupal, which is itself a popular "content management system" and blogging network that is used in a wide variety of professional situations.
The primary audience for your writing will consist of people who, like yourself, wonder about how the workplace has changed as a result of new communication technologies and, in particular, what lies ahead. A subsidiary audience is the people responsible for making important decisions for organizations who want to capitalize on these new technologies to promote better communication, collaboration, brand recognition, sales, or other systems on which organizations may rely heavily. The purpose of your white paper should be to provide essential and accurate background reading on an important and interesting topic. Here are some suggestions for possible topics (there are many possibilities, so think of these only as examples of what mgiht be possible). You could also browse, to get some leads, a listing of new applications such as Google makes available (http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/) or is now testing (http://labs.google.com/).
Project Goals
This project emphasizes several important goals that all professional writers should bear in mind and that are consistent with those of the Professional Writing Program at Purdue.
Analyze professional cultures, social contexts, and audiences to determine how they shape the various purposes and forms of writing, such as persuasion, organizational communication, and public discourse.
Develop and understand various strategies for planning, researching, drafting, revising, and editing documents that respond effectively and ethically to professional situations and audiences.
Learn and apply strategies for successful collaboration, such as working and communicating on-line with colleagues, setting and achieving project goals, and responding constructively to peers' work.
Understand and use various research methods to produce professional documents, including analyzing professional contexts, assessing and using information resources, and determining how various media and technologies affect and are affected by users and readers.
Develop strategies for using and adapting various communication technologies to manage projects and produce informative and usable professional documents.
Learn to argue with visual data, understanding and implementing various principles of format, layout, and design of professional documents that meet multiple user and reader needs.
Deliverables
Each group will do preliminary research, come up with an original topic, and create a story post that others can respond to and that will serve as your clearinghouse for the project. See calendar for more details.
Each group member will keep a weekly project log on their individual weblog.
Each individual group member will, in coordination with the rest of the group, research in depth the group's topic and post their notes to their individual weblogs on the course website.
At the end of the research phase, the group will assemble an annotated bibliography with at least eight sources from each group member and post it to their project blog.
The group is responsible for the timely creation of multiple drafts of the white paper. Each draft of your white paper will be posted to your project blog. The first draft of your white paper will be 3,000-4,500 words + bibliography. Following the first draft, you will receive further instructions for a revision assignment for creating draft 2. As you revise your white paper, you will work from global concerns (e.g., content development and organization) toward local concerns (proofreading and editing), with peer review focused on the major concerns at each stage of the revision.
The final draft of your white paper should:
At the end of the project, each group member will provide a detailed evaluation of all of the group's members and submit the form to the instructor.
A more thorough, day-by-day explanation for all deliverables and other details are included in the course calendar, starting in Week 7.
Successful collaboration will be a critical component of this project. To summarize, you should
Grading
Your individual grade for this project will be based the work produced by your team and the quality of your contribution to the project, as determined by your project evaluation forms and project logs. Project 2 is worth 25% of your overall course grade.
PROJECT 2 - REVISION & PEER REVIEW
Your Goals for Revision of the Original White Paper
Now that you have completed the first full draft of your group's white paper (3,000-4,500 + bib), the revision
assignment is to reduce the draft to 2,000-2,500 + bibliography (no more, no
less) for the next and final draft, due by Wednesday, March 26th, by midnight. Writing is about
making choices, and in reducing the draft to its concise form, your group will have to make
choices about what text to keep or expand, what to remove, and what to summarize. In
making good choices, the group should end up with a tighter, better focused draft than would
have been possible otherwise.
As you revise, the group should revisit the draft as a whole, consider any possible restructuring and what sections
of the paper might be greatly reduced (summarized) or eliminated altogether. Obviously, most
groups will have to reallocate who works on what areas of the paper since some areas are likely
to be greatly reduced.
Peer Feedback on Draft 1 of the Original White Paper
In giving feedback, keep in mind the task that each group has for revising this document and where they are in the drafting process. Obviously, you should avoid making mostly proofreading and editing comments. Try to address the following:
For your final project, you will interact (as an assigned group) with clients in a real world
writing environment to gain first-hand experience in and of professional writing. By developing
a writing project with a local organization, you will learn negotiation and collaboration
skills necessary to produce final documents satisfying to all parties.
Project summary
You will work in groups with a non-profit organization-client and negotiate a reasonable and
mutually beneficial writing/design project that will be completed by the end of the semester.
In working with community members, you will operate in a real world writing environment that
requires collaboration with your group, organization, and instructor to complete the project
by semester's end. Each group will be assigned a non-profit organization by the instructor.
It will be each group's responsibility to establish contact with its own client, communicate
online with the client to determine the needs of the organization that can be met by the group,
and inform the instructor of suggested choices.
Potential projects include any combination of the following options, totaling 3,000-4,000
words. (Note: A combination of visuals and text will lessen the total word count.):
It will be the responsibility of each group to research the history, mission and goals,
and needs of the assigned organization. Regular communication, between each group and the
instructor, will be required throughout the project. The professional level of this
communication, and its extensiveness, will be part of each group's final grade.
It is crucial that projects are appropriate in length and content. The project needs to
take roughly four weeks to produce, so project options too small or ambitious may need some
revision. It is also crucial that the project is mutually beneficial: the work needs to be
of importance to the organization and educational for the students.
Some requirements (There may be other requirements along the way):
I will be asking your contact person to fill out progress reports that document your
group’s progress on the project and any concerns they may have about your group work. These
progress reports, from your client, will factor into your final grade.
A portion of your final grade will come from your client (see Grading, below, for more
details). You will be penalized for any work turned in late during this project. I cannot
accept any excuses due to the limited time available and amount of work associated with
this project.
Before you provide final documents, etc. to your organization and receive a grade from
me, you must submit revisions of your document and receive feedback on this draft from the
client. Your final revision must show adequate work and changes based on my feedback and the
feedback of your contact person from the organization. Failure to revise properly will result
in a severe grade reduction.
Note: I will not accept any documents or emails from individuals or groups unless there is
appropriate group and assignment information in the subject line and/or the title of the
document.