Cover letters always seemed to me like an enigmatic ritual, an ancient tradition passed down by recruiters for generations. But despite their origins from the days of yore, writing them is especially beneficial for jobseekers like us. Last Thursday, Cynthia and Shiv spoke about effective resume and cover letter tips, which many of us found pretty helpful.

They gave us a few example job descriptions and told us to write how we would apply to those jobs, which is incredibly difficult if the job bluntly asked for skills we simply did not have. Initially, being a computer science major, I started working on the computer science major job description, but I realized that I should be working on applying to jobs I’m not exactly qualified for, in case CS doesn’t work out for me eventually (hey, haven’t you heard we’re in a tech bubble?). So I picked up the job description for a scientific organization worker, and I blanked out. My mind had been CS-focused for so long here at Cornell.

But Shiv and Cynthia mentioned something important: just try to remember and highlight your past experiences that relate to the job description. And suddenly I felt different gears turning in my head. Memories of volunteer work I did in high school came flying back. Science clubs and competitions of long ago rushed back into focus. Suddenly, with a few minutes of writing, I no longer had nothing. Sure, I didn’t have the most jaw-dropping experiences in the world, but I had something. And that helped.

So the main takeaway is not to feel too discouraged when you come across a job description that doesn’t exactly fit you. The most significant thing I took away from the event was that when applying to jobs that we might not be exactly qualified with, we should highlight and show those that are most relevant, not necessarily most impressive. Thanks Shiv and Cynthia!