Cover Letter and Resume Drafts
Submitted by mcermak on Thu, 07/03/2008 - 20:39.
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Here are my drafts for my cover letter and resume. I would appreciate any constructive criticism anyone has to offer, so please be brutally honest.
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White Space
Matthew after reviewing your resume and cover letter I have a few comments. First, I think that it looks very professional how the format of the resume and cover letter match headings. This connects them together and probably will help the HR and those in the selection process to better remember what was mentioned between the two. The only thing that I thought might need to be changed is that on the resume there is not too much “white space”, it looks really packed with small margins which could make it harder to read. I like how each new heading is in bold which attracts the attention to it. I noticed also that you used parallel verbs and thoroughly explained your experiences and honors so that anyone could understand. For your cover letter the formatting looks correct with it fitting on one page. I thought that it was persuasive and showed that you were qualified for the job through your past experiences. You also showed your voice and how enthusiastic you were to be considered. Overall I think that you did well on your cover letter and resume. After seeing yours I believe that I will use the same heading on mine also, making it look more professional and easy to remember. Good posts and good luck!
Reply
Matthew,
I would first like to offer some praise for your two documents. They are both clear and two the point. I’m going to offer mainly some style suggestions for both documents. Remember these are just suggestions, because there are a myriad of ways to write this style of document.
Cover Letter
This document, I feel, is well written and to the point. I enjoy how you call out your previous work experience, like that with the stereolithography project and point out how this has built your engineering credibility. From a formatting stand point, you did mention your name twice. I am all about having your name be prominent on your resume/cover letter, but you had your name in the heading and then underneath it. I would recommend maybe removing one of the two instances. Also, maybe ‘justifying’ your paragraphs would work out well. I noticed you didn’t indent your paragraphs (which is fine), but you may want to offset not justifying your paragraphs by indenting them.
Resume
I enjoyed it. It was easy to scan the resume quickly for pertinent information. I found the top jumble and confusing however. Maybe try restyling the top of your resume. Pages 226 and 227 in “The Thompson Handbook” give some really clear examples on how to keep all of your information at the top of your resume, while not having it appear cluttered and jumbled. I would also consider adding your GPA under your ‘Education’ heading. Try experimenting with italic words not just bold words for your design. The design is very ‘bold’, which is a good thing, but it appears very heavy. I know, I know, we’re supposed to be engineers, but it just looks like a piece of paper with all of the space taken up by big screaming words (I think I should have went into design at times). So maybe try italics, white space, or something else to split up your qualifications, honors, and goals.