Da*n about who you are, unless you remain concrete and highly relevant.

When I wrote my first Personal statement for college applications, I was made aware of this fact. Whoever had the misfortune of reading my college personal statement likely had the further misfortune of reading hundreds like it, of drastically varying quality. After the ten dozenth emotional story, the reader’s mind would become inured to cloying pathos and blustering ethos.

Thus, as many of my fellow scholars have noted, companies have implemented algorithms to sift through personal statements and cover letters. No buzz words? No job! Made it past that barrier? Your meticulously crafted personal statement will get read for about five to seven seconds, before it is either blessed or binned. I was well aware that the readers didn’t really want to read all those personal statements, but I had no idea it was that bad.

This has once again changed my views on the Personal Statement. It has evolved from a narrative piece describing your interests and desires, to a tangentially narrative piece describing your experience and ability. There is no room for romantics in the chess game between employers and employees; To win this round, you will have to know the opponent as well as you know yourself. One can show that he knows his opponent by doing research and by enlisting spies– I mean, connections– to give him the inner workings of their organization: important names, important projects, important procedures.

As for the knowledge of oneself, well, that will come with experience and practice. Magdala and Dr. Hill are both extremely knowledgeable on the subject– possibly too knowledgeable: by the time the event had ended, we didn’t have enough time to write our own personal statements during the workshop. I do hope we have another workshop, so I can have a chance to apply what I’ve learned!

Cover letters are a really important aspect when applying for jobs and internships. It speaks about you as a person and things that are not listed in the resume. Often times, resumes are similar throughout different candidates. There are similar leadership positions and extracurricular activities in the resume, but the cover letter goes beyond that. It provides employers a sense of who the person applying for the position is. The event reiterated some things I already knew. But one thing I learned was creating different resumes for different positions. Some roles and activities on the resume might be irrelevant for some positions. It’s good to have different sets of resumes.

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!

For many of us finding a job could be a tedious and stressful process. It may seem difficult to stand out among thousands of applicants who are also competing for the same position. Especially, if one is applying for big companies the process can even be more challenging. It may also be difficult to impress a recruiter who is looking for a candidate that is close to an ideally best employee. Resume and cover letter are our main tools to stand out in this job hunting process.
A lot has been said about writing good resumes, but I haven’t heard much about cover letters. Personally, I think writing a cover letter can be challenging since one has to explain why s/he is the best fit for a position. It may even be hard for many college students who don’t have much work experience. Cynthia and Shiv shared some tips to use in one’s cover letter. For instance, if one knows different languages and for some reason wants a position in a company that develops software, they can explain their ability to learn and use different languages in their letter. It is also good to gather more information about the company and ask questions. In case if you don’t want the company to recognize your email, create and use a job email account. Mentioning high school experience may also be fine if it relates to the specific position one is looking for.  One should also make sure that there are no syntax errors in the letter and of course, most importantly, DOUBLE CHECK IF YOU WROTE THE COMPANY NAME CORRECTLY!

Below are more concise tips shared by Cynthia and Shiv

• DO make sure you use proper salutations (e.g. “Dear Mr./Dr./Ms. So-and-so”) and closings (e.g. “Respectfully,” or “Sincerely”).
• DO spell-check and have someone else read your letter to check for typos, mis-used words, unclear phrasings.  There is nothing worse than applying for a position – where attention to detail is necessary – and sending in a letter full of mistakes!
• DO be creative about how your experience is valuable for something the company/organization/institution seeks, but DON’T inflate your ability to do something to the point that you are not being accurate!
• DO be specific about how your experiences have shaped your perspective/offer some insight to the field/meet the expectations of that company/organization/institution.  
• DO be positive about what you can offer and if there is something you lack from the list of requirements, you can address it via the experiences you do have.
  
• DO seek out on-campus resources available to you as well.  Cornell’s Career Services offer walk-in help as well as practice with mock interviews (http://www.career.cornell.edu/about/come-see-us.cfm)

Good Luck!

Last Thursday I attended a seminar in which we learned about the basics behind what makes a good cover letter. This seminar turned out to be very useful as the next day I had an internship application to submit. Most of the information I have heard from previous lectures from career services, but it was great to have a smaller group in order to answer specific questions. One interesting aspect of the seminar was seeing how people from different schools and different interests would have to change what they present. For example, im in ILR looking for an internship in the sports management industry and all i really have to put down (besides the obvious stuff like name, e-mail, etc.) are relevant courses, clubs, skills, and previous experiences working. Some of the science/medical students were asking questions regarding lab procedures, publications, and a bunch of other intricacies that i had never heard of. They not only have to worry about that, but also the previous information that i said earlier. Cover letters are tough because you have to tailor your information to the employer as well as what the job description entails. I thought the online dating analogy was good because there are many parallels between that and applying for a job. Overall this seminar was very helpful and i look forward to attending more events like this in the future.

Last Thursday I attended the Rose House Cover Letter Seminar. I was really glad that Rose was having an event to discuss job and internship applications as I feel particularly clueless in that area. Cynthia and Shiv started by reviewing the kinds of things one would want to put on a resume. They also recommended that we keep a “master resume” containing all the things we have accomplished so as to make it easier to pare down the list to fit a particular job, while also not forgetting anything that may be relevant.

They pointed out that in job listings employer typically make it very clear what the want in a potential candidate. And in the case that a listing is less than transparent, it may be a good idea to call and inquire, without leaving your name, or to email from an alternative address. Once you know what the employer wants, you should tailor your resume to be as close to their listing as possible. Ideally, you want you and the job to be as close of a match as possible. In the event that you don’t have the exact qualification they are looking for, you can spin one of your skills or experiences to fit the qualification. For example, if you need to know a computer language but you know several foreign languages, you could spin it and say that you have the skills to learn said computer language quickly. The cover letter is the perfect place to tie things in on your resume to the qualification they are searching for.

One of the most striking thing that  Cynthia and Shiv mentioned is that employers, while reviewing large numbers of resumes just want to be done as soon as possible. The closer you can be to what they are looking for and the more concise you can be, the better.

It was the beginning of the spring semester and most clubs were recruiting again. This also meant drafting many cover letters, editing and reediting your resume a million times until you got it just right. During my application process one main problem that I had with editing my resume was figuring out when do I remove my high school experience from my resume? When I was stuck with this dilemma I decided to attend the Rose seminar: secret behind the cover letter.

This seminar was very helpful and answered a lot of the questions I had. Most importantly it answered my main purpose for attending the seminar. I learned that its best to have one large document with all your past experiences from high school or even middle school to now. Then based on the industry or job or in my case club I was applying to I should cater my resume to fit the job description.

The seminar helped me in terms of understanding how to cater my resume and cover letter to the specific job or position I am applying to. I even learned that even if it was an activity or a leadership role you had in high school it would be wise to keep it in your as long as it’s relevant. Therefore, the key to knowing when you need to delete your high school experience from your resume depends on relevance.