Ten Tips For Writing A Killer Cover Letter And Resume

Here comes a tool that will make writing your resume much easier as I’m soon about to hand you my “10 Point Cover Letter and Resume Checklist”. I use it every time I prepare a cover letter and resume for a client. And soon you can use it for yourself.

First things first, let’s just call these tips, instead of calling them rules — because I have never been a lover of rules. And sometimes you need to know when to throw all the rules away… Regrettably, this solely comes with the depth of knowledge and experience you gain from crafting a ton of cover letters and resumes. These are “almost rules” because they’re actually 10 classic tips for creating a good cover letter and resume that’s simple and easy to follow. This will be important in the final version.

With that said, please follow these as closely as possible. If you don’t have the fundamental principles down in your finished resume and cover letter draft, then you can go back and rework the details that are inadequate. These 10 rules of thumb are the bare-bones essentials of a captivating resume… and they will serve you well. Stick to this advice whenever you compose your cover letter and resume, and you can bet on it that you’re going to catch an employer’s eye. To create a respectable resume, it takes patience, time and a persistence to rework, edit and revise. Follow these ten tips when you write your resume and cover letter to assure you’ll be discovered by an employer.

One: Does your cover letter and resume look appealing to a potential reader? While it may seem straightforward, most resumes are cramped, difficult to read, inundated with detail and can seem disconnected in how they develop.

Two: Is the cover letter interesting, factual and informative? Don’t just summarize your whole resume, specify your qualifications, education and experience. Your cover letter should lead a potential employer to want to read the complete resume in its entirety.

Three: Have I kept things simple enough? Don’t just add a lot of info that isn’t applicable to the position you are applying for. Most resumes are designed for a shotgun type of application; this often means that you are unable to highlight the specific accomplishments that fit this one job. Most of the time merely altering your cover letter wont be enough and you’ll need to alter your resume for each application.

Four: Is there as much white space as text? Blank space can break up the bullet points, help to highlight information, and make your resume more easy to read and snazzy without all the supplemental lines, shading and graphics seen on some modern-day types of resumes.

Five: How’s my spelling so far? Make sure you double check grammar and spelling; then check again. Then get a list of common homonym mistakes and find which ones you might have used wrongly There’s simply nothing more unprofessional or uglier looking than spelling something wrong on your cover letter or resume. This includes the the business’ name, employer’s name or any other information. Before printing or saving the resume, the last thing you should do is to run an automatic spell check with your word processor. I also advocate printing out a draft copy and reading through the hard version. Automated spell check can’t fix a “there” that should be a “they’re” and sometimes it’s easier to see on the printed version.

Six: Are there enough phrases and bullet points being used to minimize the quantity of required reading by the employer. Shorten each sentence to a smallest amount of words while also painting a clear picture of your qualifications. If you turn your list of achievements for each job into a bulleted list makes it much easier for an employer to read quickly. Try to keep things concise, punchy and short.

Seven: Are you using a tad too much industry specific slang or technical jargon on the cover letter and resume? You’ll probably notice people work so long at a specific job that industry-specific words creep into their everyday usage like any other habit — now here’s the tricky part: a lot of time you do not realize and can end up using such words which not everyone understands.

Eight: Have you done enough research on the company you’re applying for? By knowing a particular company’s goals or mission statements you can get a feel for who they might be wanting to hire and discover some of their internal slang… then integrate them into your cover letter and resume when possible.

Nine: Have I said too much already? For professionals, the average two page maximum may not be enough room if you have enormous experience. Rather than keeping track of how many pages you have, focus more on writing a strong cover letter and resume.

Ten: Am I broadcasting the wrong message? If you’re using a fancy-looking, martian-like font instead of a plain typeface font, you just might be shooting yourself in the foot. This one is more for you since I already know to use the more easily read fonts from the beginning.

Here’s a quick conclusion (until I have more time to write something better): Using the above 10 tips will help with writing an outstanding cover letter and resume.