How To Write a Resume, Cover Letter, and More-Introduction

I graduated from Arizona State University with a BS in Business Administration, majoring in Human Resource Management. I have worked as a technical training writer , in the construction, and facility management industry, and I have written a booklet entitled How to Write A Resume, Cover Letter, and More, which I self-published and copyrighted in 1995, and sold on www.amazon.com. However, don’t try to find it on their website today, as it is now out of print.

My future blog entries will contain excerpts from my booklet, How to Write A Resume, Cover Letter, and More, updated of course to be relevant in the 21st century, and it will contain such topics such as resume writing, sample resumes, job application writing, both on paper, and on-line, cover letter writing, and cover letter samples. These topics will address the viewpoints of the recent high school graduate, the recent college graduate, and the more seasoned professional. It will teach you how to navigate the applicant tracking system (computer scans) employers use to weed out your resume, and how to “weed” yourself back in.

But more important, my advice won’t be delivered from the viewpoint of a best-selling book author guru sitting on a mountaintop in Tibet dispensing free wagon load advice. It’s from someone who was in the trenches, looking for a job like you are who once was finding no full-time employment in this dismal economy. So some may think this makes me unqualified to share this advice because I’ve not followed my own advice. I am not someone pulling down a 6 figure salary. To the contrary, I am qualified because this makes me sympathetic concerning what you are going through. I personally know the strain unemployment puts on family, fun, your ego, and your financial and social life. Also, well I do fully know how serious this problem can be. I can approach it with a little humor, and I hope you can find the humor in your own adventure also. Sharing my personal interview foibles will make you laugh, and I hope put a little less levity into your own situation.

Other topics I would like to cover include how to research a company, how to research salary expectations, how to budget for job hunting, how to research an industry, part-time or stop gap employment, volunteer employment, labor laws, motivation, job hunting web-sites, moving to another city, employment scams, and interviewing skills. And of course since this column is about jobs, and careers, I don’t want to forget the career side. I hope you will check out my previous post which reviewed one of the most popular, and helpful career planning book of both the 20^th and the 21^st century entitled, What Color is Your Parachute?

But of course, in all my future excerpts, if you choose to ignore all my great free advice, feel free. Please, don’t take me too seriously, and feel free to approach everything I say with a grain of salt. Only you know your career expectations, your industry, your local economy, and only you have walked a mile in your shoes. Unlike the guru on the mountaintop, my goal is not to make you feel worse, for not doing such, and such, but hopefully I will reach my goal of making you feel better about this wonderful adventure you are on, and give you some hope, and some advice that will benefit you in the long run.

And it is a wonderful adventure. You may not feel like it now, but I promise you, you will meet great people, make fantastic friends, and learn many things by being unemployed, if you only will look at this unwanted situation as a learning adventure, and a time for personal, and spiritual growth, and not just as a personal crisis. Note my truth-in-advertising, I’m not promising you a job from reading my job hunting blog, or even an exciting new career, that’s up to you, and fate, or if you believe, God. But you never know how this personal and public economic crisis could drive you into an exciting new career if you can only keep your mind open.

I’ve been told that the Chinese symbol or character for crisis is an amalgamation of opportunity, and danger. Just don’t miss your opportunity, by concentrating on the danger of a missed paycheck.

Note the excerpts contained in this blog come from the previously copyrighted material below, and any plagiarism will be prosecuted up to the full extent of the law.

Linda Bier, How to Write A Resume, Cover Letter, and More, New Vision Dawning, PO Box 5072 Mesa, AZ 85211-5072 © 1995, © Rev., 2nd Ed. 1996.