YP4 Webinar: Marketing Your Best Self: Resume & Cover Letter Tips

1. YP4 Webinar:Marketing Your Best Self: Resume & Cover Letter Tips July 29, 2010 Alyssa Best, Career Consultant

2. Goals for the Webinar Discuss how to be more specific and concrete in the examples you use in your resume and cover letter Develop strategies for translating a job task into a results-oriented accomplishment Provide tips on how to best grab the reader's attention so that you land a job interview Review good and bad examples of resumes and cover letters

3. Your resume and cover letter tell a story about you and your experience. Are they effectively marketing your skills?

4. Resume Tips: Style Your resume should be clean and in a user-friendly format Make information pop by experimenting with bold and italic typeface Use headings to organize information Bullet points help communicate job responsibilities in a concise manner Tailor your resume to each position (but keep a master resume for yourself) Stick to the one-page limit

5. Resume Tips: Content Use strong action verbs and dynamic language For every job responsibility or task you list, ask yourself: “What was the result of this work? How did I make an impact?” Reframe the bullet point to describe your accomplishment or the skills you gained rather than the task you performed Quantify your results by including specific numbers (e.g. $1000 raised, 50 volunteers trained, 200 people recruited to an event) Put the most impressive item about each position at the top of the list Consider all relevant skill sets, especially language and computer skills

6. Resume Tips: Things to Avoid Don’t use present progressive tense (e.g. working) Inconsistent formatting Spelling errors or typos Long blocks of text that a reader may skim over Including silly/cheesy activities and interests Lying about your experience and skill sets Check to make sure that your document doesn’t run over to a second, blank page

7. Review of sample resumes

8. Cover Letter Tips: Style Limit the letter to one page Address the letter to a specific person or department Create your own letterhead using the same heading on your resume Use standard fonts Spelling and grammar must be perfect

9. Cover Letter Tips: Content Create a link between the skills outlined on your resume and the specific employment needs of organization Detail how your skills and background directly match the requirements of the position Use key words highlighted in the job description Share an experience or achievement that would interest the reader Concrete examples are better than vague, general terms Demonstrate that you know specific information about the organization

10. Cover Letter Tips: Things to Avoid Restating information on your resume Indicating salary requirements unless explicitly requested in job posting Referring to the wrong organization or position title Addressing the letter, “Dear Recruiter” Cover letter is too short Selling yourself short

11. Review of sample cover letters

12. Further Resources Idealist.org’sIdealist Guide to Nonprofit Careers for First-time Job Seekers Resume Action Verbs and Keywords: http://www.resume-help.org/resume_action_words.htm

13. Q & A

14. Contact Information Contact me with any questions or comments or to get feedback on your resume and cover letter! Alyssa Best Career Consultant alyssa@alyssabest.com www.alyssabest.com LYJ (Love Your Job)Blog: http://lyjnow.wordpress.com