Simply Hired Blog

Top 5 Aspects of a Killer Cover Letter

By Becky Harris

It’s no secret that finding a job is challenging in the current economy. Statistics say the outlook for employment is slowly increasing, but numbers on a chart don’t necessarily translate into real-world positions for those seeking work. It has become a job-seeker eats job-seeker market, and the only true tools the unemployed have are the traditional methods of presenting what makes them special: the cover letter, the resume, and hopefully, the interview.

The first step is the most important – the cover letter. It is the foot in the door in any job application, the first impression you as a candidate give to a potential employer. It is also the thing that can send your application straight into the trash. Anyone who is looking for a new employee probably has a stack of applications, many of them with similar qualifications as yours, and the only thing that is going to move you forward is that cover letter.

These are five top things an attention-getting cover letter absolutely requires in order to draw positive attention to you. Some of these might seem intuitive, but they are forgotten surprisingly often and can be instant application killers if not followed:

1. Make the Letter Job-Specific – It may seem to save time and effort if you write a generic cover letter that focuses only on your resume and skills, or some statement of your experience. While these things should be included in your cover letter, it is important to individualize each one to the specific job for which you’re applying, and give a brief explanation of how your skills and experience fit that position.
   
   
2. Keep it Brief but Informative – Because the cover letter is the first – and maybe only – look a potential employer might take at your application, many job-seekers make the mistake of trying to cram as much information as possible into that single opportunity. Instead, provide a short statement of how your specific skills and experience are an ideal fit for the company, but keep it under one page.
   
   
3. Remember it’s a Sales Letter – This is a document that provides the first impression of you as a potential employee. Many applicants undersell themselves, or don’t provide any indication that their personality or experience would profit the company. Think of the cover letter as a way of making yourself a product, and convince the reader you are a product they need. Be careful not to make it a biography, however, but rather a statement of why you would be an asset to them.
   
   
4. Do a Thorough Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation Check – Don’t rely on spellcheck to do it, as they will often miss things and make mistakes that an educated human eye wouldn’t. To make absolutely certain your cover letter is pristine, read it several times yourself. Read it out loud to see how it sounds to your ear. This is a good way to hear mistakes a tired eye might have missed. Finally, have another person read it over before you finally send it out, just in case. 


5. Follow Up – Your application is only one in a veritable wave of them, and it’s very easy to get lost. If the hiring manager has made it to your letter, that’s a good start, but it’s imperative that you leave a lasting impression and open a door for further steps in the interview process. Thank the reader for their time and attention, then be certain to let them know specifically when you will contact them to follow up. Close with contact information including your phone number and email address so they can get in touch with you first if they choose. Follow up on your promise by calling or emailing the company in the time frame you specified, ask about the status of your application, and ask whether they need any further information from you.

What may be the most important aspect of writing a killer cover letter is to make sure it’s not just a copy of your resume in prose form. It is an introduction that must grab the attention of the reader and make them want to move on to your resume, and most of all, to meet you face-to-face. The cover letter can make the difference between keeping you an unemployment statistic and achieving the job of your dreams.

Becky Harris is a blogger for upack portable storage containers and writes on a variety of topics. Including, but not limited to, helping college students land a career, interviewing tips, moving and changing locations to better your career, and best business fashions. Helping college graduates excel is one of her many passions.

Getting Over Resume Hate

By Sean Weinberg

I hate writing resumes.

It’s a pain. There is nothing fun about it. It takes a large amount of time, mental and psychological commitment, and frankly, it’s hard to produce a quality product. And if you’re anything like me, or 99% of the rest of the world, you hate writing resumes too. Even the hiring manager receiving your resume hates writing resumes.

It’s hard to write a resume. Not just because it’s difficult to write clearly and persuasively.  Or concisely. Or because you’ve done so much you don’t want to leave anything out. Or because you feel you’ve done so little that you have nothing worthwhile to say. Those are all true and relevant, but none are the real reason for why writing a resume is so difficult.

It’s because it matters.

A resume is your introduction. Your first hello. It is the one and only time where you have complete control over how another person views you. Up until you get an interview, you’re not a person, just a resume.

And that’s a heckuva scary thought.

Especially when you are in an active job search and it’s a bad economy. And it’s because it matters so much that so many of us have such difficulty sitting down and writing a resume. The pressure to do great work is heavy and cumbersome.

So how do you get over your resume hate?

1. Your resume is not who you are.

Your resume is not your life story. The contents of your resume are not your identity. Your self-worth is not tied to your previous or current jobs.

We are trained from birth to see the people as job titles. It’s the second question we ask when we meet someone new – “what do you do?” This Pavlovian training is part of what makes it so hard to be out of work; being jobless makes us feel valueless. And it’s wrong.

The first trick is to completely forget that nonsense. A job is just a job. It’s what you do to pay the bills. Your self-worth is better determined by how you treat your family than what job you do. Easier said than done. Still, you have to always try to remember that your job is not your life and a resume is just a piece of paper.

2. The readers don’t care that much. 

That person reading your resume is not reading it carefully. They’re glancing at it – giving it a quick read before making a decision. Those sentences you’ve spent hours perfectly crafting; they’re barely being looked at. So don’t sweat it so much. It’s much more important to facilitate a quick decision via a professional headline than it is to make sure your 4^th bullet on your 3^rd most recent job is a grammatical gem.

Someone in the comments below is going to tell you I’m wrong. A professional resume writer is going to take exception to this. Unfortunately, there are mountains of empirical and anecdotal evidence that demonstrate that this I’m right. In studies run by TheLadders, recruiters were spending a total of 6 seconds looking at your resume.

3. Write like a reader.

The main trick to getting over your resume writing hate is to forget about your personal needs, and write a reader focused resume. By thinking about what the reader needs to see versus what you need to say, you’re taking the pressure off yourself. You’re not selling yourself on the resume; you’re selling a productized candidate. Externalizing yourself and your experience makes it exponentially easier to write a resume. You’re not losing a bit of yourself by deleting that experience; you are only refining the sales pitch. Just like point 1 above, your resume writing is not going to be successful until you can take your self-worth out of the mix.

Will incorporating all these tips really get your over the ‘resume hate’ bump? Probably not.

I’ve written literally hundreds of resumes and it’s still not something I always love doing (I often do love it, but I’m a weirdo). However, I hope that if you can incorporate a small bit of the advice in these tips, it will reduce your job search hate just a little. And just a little is totally worth it.

Agree? Disagree? Post a comment below.

Sean Weinberg is the COO and co-founder of RezScore, a free web application that reads, analyzes, and grades resumes – instantly. Also the founder of Freedom Resumes, Sean has dedicated his career to helping job seekers write the best possible resumes.

Simply Hired Launches Simply Apply for One-Click Job Application on Mobile Devices

It’s here! Today, we are very excited to launch Simply Apply, a quick and easy way for job seekers to apply for jobs on mobile devices and the Web. Did you know that 77 percent of job seekers are using mobile technology for their job search? It’s true. And we want to turn those folks into candidates, so we’ve come up with a one-click process to do just that.

Just click on a job’s Simply Apply button, and you can review and edit pre-populated contact and resume information. Nice! As an option, a personalized cover letter can of course be added too. The simple user interface makes this process efficient and immediate. So whether you’re at home or on-the-go, applying to jobs has never been easier.

To get started:

• Go to the URL m.simplyhired.com from your phone browser.
• Search for a job using the keyword and location boxes like you would do on Simplyhired.com. An example of a search would be Keyword:"software engineer" and Location:"Sunnyvale, CA".
• On the search results, some of the jobs will have the word Simply Apply listed on the job. Select a job with the Simply Apply logo.
  • About 10,000 employers in a wide range of industries have enabled Simply Apply on their jobs. The jobs listings with this feature will continue to grow. 
• After reviewing the job description, if you find the job appropriate, click the Simply Apply button at the top of the description.
• An application window will pop up. You are not required to have a resume submitted to the system in advance. You can login to your LinkedIn account to create a resume from your phone.
• Add a cover letter in the optional cover letter field. Keep in mind that a cover letter is a way to help distinguish your application from the crowd.
• Press Submit Application and you're DONE!
• Don't forget to follow up after submitting your application.

To watch a demonstration of the feature in action view our video.

Check out Simply Apply for yourself today. To learn more about Simply Apply, please see our press release. 

Give Your Career Clear Direction with a Vision Statement

By Robin Fisher Roffer

Set an intention that takes you to the nexus of authentic purpose and potential.  

“So tell me, where do you see yourself in five years?” I’ve always had distain for that frequently asked and totally uninspired interview question. After all, it’s not about the next five years -- it’s about your whole life!  The question should be, “What kind of impact do you want to make in the world and how do you want to be recognized for it?” 

The only way to give a thoughtful response to that question is to sit down and imagine what you really want for your career long term and then crisply articulate that audacious dream so that it can take flight. 

The vision statement you arrive at should answer the question, “Where do I want to go?  It should deliver a cosmic view of possibilities. It can be uncharted and far-reaching – even farfetched. It can never be small-minded and laced with fear. 

Marianne Williamson once said, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world.”

Vision statements serve as an inspiration and framework for decision making and planning. A powerful vision statement can stretch boundaries and comfort zones – empowering you to have a sense of what can be.

The most successful companies in the world write vision statements. When the statement is short and memorable, it can lead the company to do incredible, sometimes unthinkable things. Case in point, look at what Microsoft wrote for their vision statement back in the 1980’s:

"A computer in every home running Microsoft software." This vision statement may have seemed unattainable to most people back then. In fact, I’m sure there were employees inside the company who were afraid of the largesse of the task. Yet it served as a North Star that has driven Microsoft's success to this day.

Whether it’s Ford’s vision “To become the world's leading Consumer Company for automotive products and services” or Nike’s vision “To be the number one athletic company in the world,” there’s a sense of fearlessness – of destiny – as if planting your flag and liberating yourself is to say, “This is who I am and this is how far I can go.” Just as Walt Whitman once said, “Sail Forth- Steer for the deep waters only.”  Use your personal vision statement to be the compass for your career.

Different from your mission statement, which answers why you do what you do, your vision statement sets in motion your career destiny. It should be so immense you feel a little scared just writing it down, but do it anyway, and guide yourself to success. Then surround yourself with the right people who will cheer you on as you say “yes” to opportunities that will manifest your vision. 

Write a vision statement today so you can fearlessly achieve your dreams and spark the energy within yourself to make them a reality. 

Robin Fisher Roffer has ignited brands of major corporations like Sony, Time-Warner and 20^th Century Fox. For her work, she is ranked on the Top 5 List of Most Influential Brand Gurus in the World. She appears as a career expert on national TV programs such as ABC, Bloomberg and Fox. Learn more about Robin at: http://bigfishmarketing.com/career-blogging.

4 Tips for Managing Your Quarter Life Crisis

By Lesley Mitler

The quarter life crisis is nothing new – I went through it myself many years ago. 

For me, it was not a thoughtful, gradual migration to another field.  It sounds humorous now – I was fired from a family business with little savings and a story that sounded like it was missing a few chapters.  I didn’t even think about finding another accounting job. After four years as a CPA, I knew it wasn’t for me.

Luckily within a few weeks, I secured a position as an executive search consultant, which turned out to be a great fit! I worked in search for more than two decades before migrating to my current role in a closely related field.  So if you are in your twenties and contemplating a career change, I would like to offer some advice that could help you make a seamless transition to something you love:

1.       Know your skills and strengths. Look at your academic experience, your work experience and your community service/extra-curricular endeavors.  Make a list of all the skills you have gained from these various experiences.  Make sure to include all core competencies (i.e.: communication, interpersonal, critical thinking) as well as technology and social media proficiencies.  Be honest with yourself and make sure you can convince others of your strength in these areas.

2.       Make a list of the types of jobs and/or organizations that interest you.  The best way to determine if you have the appropriate skills for a different position is to look at job descriptions of positions that appeal to you and see if you have many of the qualifications for the role.  For example, I was able to transition from accounting to recruiting because I understood the role of an accountant, which gave me more expertise and leverage as a recruiter of financial talent.  Look for those skills that can help you make a logical transition to another type of job.

3.       Network.   Talk to as many people as you can.  Tell them about your skills and strengths.  Ask them for advice about the kinds of careers that could be a viable next move.

4.       Be open to an entry level role.  So I know you may have three to five years of work experience but, if you want to change fields, it might be in your best interest to look at entry level positions.  If you try for jobs that are geared toward 3-5 years of experience, you will be at a definite competitive disadvantage.  Remember, your work experience and maturity may help you to stand out as a candidate, get promoted at a more accelerated rate, or take on additional responsibilities more quickly.

Let me leave you with one final positive thought.  If you are presenting yourself to a potential employer, they might view you as someone who has more maturity than a recent grad.  You have tried a different route, which has helped you to assess what you like and don’t like; what you excel at and do well and the type of organization and culture that appeal to you.  Your view is more long term – you know that this is a key career decision.  And so does your potential employer, which gives them some reason to believe that this shared commitment will be successful for both of you.  Don’t settle – work hard to find your passion so you can enjoy and thrive for the rest of your career.

Lesley Mitler is president and founder of Priority Candidates, which prepares college students and recent graduates nationwide to get hired for their first jobs. An alumnus of Duke University who is based in New York City, Lesley has been featured in USA Today, The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Smart Money and dozens of other publications.