Employment Project

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.

project prompt and summary

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.

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. In the Employment Project, you will learn to shape your writing for very specific situations and purposes:

Writing in Context

• writing for a range of defined audiences and stakeholders

Project Management

• Understand, develop and deploy various strategies for planning, researching, drafting, revising, and editing documents both individually and collaboratively.
• Select and use appropriate technologies that effectively and ethically address professional situations and audiences.
• Build professional ethos through documentation and accountability.

Document Design
Make rhetorical design decisions about workplace documents, including

• understanding and adapting to genre conventions and audience expectations
• understanding and implementing design principles of format and layout
• drafting, researching, testing, and revising visual designs and information architecture

Teamwork
Learn and apply strategies for successful teamwork and collaboration, such as

• working online with colleagues

Research
Understand and use various research methods to produce professional documents, including

• analyzing professional contexts

deliverables

Step 1: T-Chart. Find a job that you are currently qualified for through one of the resources provided (or any other search engine). You will create an abridged T-letter, a new but growing genre in employment searches (see sample here), that aligns your skills with the company demands (when soliciting jobs, you would include an introduction and conclusion and place the T-chart in letter format. For this step, you will create only the chart as a brainstorming tool). In Microsoft Word, paste the text of the job ad, and then create a two column table. In one column of the table, list all the skills required by the company as stated in the job ad. In the other column, match your past experience with these requirements. In order to satisfy the company requirement, you must provide concrete institutional experience (work, school, volunteer job, organization, etc), so if they're looking for organization skills, you can talk about how you planned a banquet at work, but not about how clean you keep your room. You can leave blanks for qualifications that you can't provide specifics for, but if there are too many blanks, you probably aren't qualified for the position. Post the T-letter as an attachment to a blog. Due by midnight on June 30.

Step 2: Print-Based Resume. Your printable resume (one page in length) should adapt features drawn from the class readings 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. Your writing needs to be error-free, concise, and presented in an easily readable format. Draft due for peer review: July 3 by midnight. Your resume draft should be posted to your blog as a .doc attachment to a blog message that explains the nature of the attachment and invites peer feedback. 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. Final Resume Due July 9 by midnight!

Step 3: 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 2, your letter should be no longer than one page, following the suggestions and models presented in class readings and reading responses. You should submit the draft of your application letter to your blog for peer review by midnight on July 3. Your letter should be attached to a blog post that includes a cover note that follows guidelines for Eliciting Good Response and the .doc version of the letter. 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 4: Peer Editing: Choose two other student resumes and cover letters. Read them carefully and provide feedback in a 200 word comment below their blog post. Provide constructive feedback about strengths, weaknesses, and potential improvements in formatting, content, and design. Consider the resume and cover letter together and the impression they create for an employer. For this project, you are graded for giving, not receiving, peer editing feedback, but please try to make sure that everyone receives at least one peer editing comment. Peer editing is due Monday, July 7.

Completing Your Project: By July 9, post your final resume and cover letter as .pdf attachments to the Employment Project Turn In blog. Include a brief description that explains and contextualizes the attachments. Read these directions for converting your documents to PDF format if you have any questions about the process.

grading

The Employment Project is worth 20% of your course grade. The breakdown for each of its components is as follows: Step 1: Job Ad and T-Chart (20%); Step 2: Resume (40%); Step 3: Cover Letter (40%).

grading criteria

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.

revision

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.