Complete systematic self, career, and job analysis.
Prepare an effective chronological, functional, or combination chronological and functional resume.
Locate information about employers’ needs for workers.
Write an application letter that effectively introduces an accompanying resume.
Have you set your career goals? Do you have a plan for reaching them
?
Goal setting does for individuals what management by objectives does for businesses. Setting goals forces people to consider what to be accomplished. How is progress measured? How is it best accomplished? How is progress measured?
Life’s happiness is directly related to life’s work.
Research and analyze before choosing a career.
Preparing a thorough, neat notebook will help you write a winning resume and interview effectively.
Prepare a company job profile for the company/job in which you expect to be interviewing.
Did you know that most entry-level employees are seeking a second job within 6 months?
You will probably never find the job and the organization that will satisfy all your needs and meet all your requirements.
Some factors will be more important to you than others.
This analysis will prevent you from becoming one of the increasing number of entry-level workers who are looking for another job after only 6 months because their qualifications and needs were not compatible with the company and job requirement.
What purpose does a resume serve?
Recording answer in your career notebook should help you:
Identify your qualifications as they relate to an employer’s needs.
Ensure that you have selected the right career.
Compare you qualifications with the duties and responsibilities of the job you are seeking.
How will preparing a career notebook facilitate your job search?
Writing resumes that sell.
Without a resume that sells your qualifications in terms of the employer’s needs, you will never have an opportunity to sell yourself at an interview.
How much time do you need to explain why you should be hired?
Because an employer typically spends 2 minutes or less reading a resume, you have very little time to explain why you are the best person for the job.
What 3 decisions must you make when planning and writing a winning resume
?
You must selectively choose what to say, and how to arrange it on the page so that it can be read quickly but thoroughly.
A concise informative, easy to read summary of your relevant qualifications will not only get you an interview but also will tell the employer that you possess the straightforward communication skills demanded in today’s information-intensive society.
What information is included in an effective resume?
Identification.
Objective-job (or type of work) being sought.
Summary of achievements (optional).
Qualifications (primary your education and experience).
Personal information (included only if it is related to the job duties and/or strengthens the resume).
References (often just a statement that references are available; however, references can be listed under certain circumstances).
What is the goal of a resume? What information should you include in a resume?
The goal of a resume is to get an interview, so ask you this question; does including this information increase my chance of getting an interview?
What are the consequences of providing false information on a resume?
The interviewer may uncover your exaggeration when verifying information on a resume and can legally terminate your employment.
Be certain the interviewer can reach you by mail or telephone during regular office hours.
Answering machine greetings should be courteous, clear, and professional. Avoid music, jokes and clever remarks.
What are the characteristics of a good job objective?
A good job objective must be specific enough to be meaningful yet general enough to apply to a variety of jobs.
What purpose does a summary statement serve?
It summarizes your major qualifications. By reading the career objective and a summary statement about your achievements, interviewers know what you want and why an employer will want to hire you.
Including a summary statement can set your resume apart from competitors who did not realize that employers would like to see this section.
Information in the resume may support the summary statement presented in the opening section.
Information gained from self, career, and job analysis will aid you in dividing this section into appropriate divisions.
Should you include information about high school? Explain?
Should omit high school activities because the information is old news.
Include GPA only if it strengthens your qualifications.
When should you list jobs with the most job-related experience first?
The job may be listed in reverse chronological order or in order of job relatedness.
Begin with the job that most obviously relates to the job being sought
Accomplishments neatly bulleted so interviewers can readily locate them "glitter like diamonds".
What is the advantage of using subject understood sentences and action verbs as first words?
Because interviewers spend such a short time reading resumes, the style must be direct and simple. A resume should use crisp phrases to help employers see the value of the applicant’s education and experiences.
Ask yourself? Does the information relate to the job being sought?
Resist the urge to include everything you have ever done; keep in mind that every item you add distracts from other information.
Consider summarizing information that is relevant but does not merit several separate lines.
Instead of including unrelated personal information, develop your qualifications or leave more white space to increase appeal and readability.
What types of personal information must you omit?
Height, weight, and color of hair and eyes is not normally worthy of inclusion.
Reveal ethnic background or disability only if doing so is to your advantage.
Would you reveal that you do not smoke or are affiliated with a particular religious or civic group?
Nonsmoker on the resume may restrict the number of interviews with employers who condone smoking and increase the number of interviews with employers who do not.
An applicant for a religious or political organization may benefit from revealing affiliation with such an organization.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of including a list of references?
By withholding references until they are requested, an applicant may avoid unnecessary or untimely requests being sent to the present employer. The interview gives an applicant a chance to assess the desirability of the job.
It is an advantage because information about you adds credibility to the resume.
Always ask your references for permission to list their names as references before you put them on your resume or give them to interviewer.
In what ways should the reference page complement the resume?
On a separate page, place the word REFERENCES and your name, address, and telephone number in a visible position and balance the list attractively on the page.
Whether it is handed to the interviewer personally or mailed, the references page professionally compliments your resume.
What hidden message do you send when you promptly submit a list of references in person or by mail?
You will have impressed the interviewer with your promptness in completing this task-a positive indicator that you will handle other duties similarly.
Use empathy; the resume is designed to impress the employer.
Why list the experience most closely related to the job sought first?
How does a functional resume report experience and education?
In a functional resume, points of primary interest to employers-transferable skills-appear in major headings.
These headings highlight what an applicant can do for the employer-functions that can be perform well.
Under each heading, an applicant can draw from educational and/or work related experience to provide supporting evidence.
Should major headings be presented in alphabetical order?
Order of importance is probably the best sequence for functional headings, if you had prepare an accurate job analysis and self-analysis, the selected headings will highlight points of special interest to the employer.
What do the headings in the functional resume emphasize? What important question do they answer?
They emphasize the functions you can perform and the special qualifications you have to offer.
When is a functional resume recommended?
If you consider yourself well qualified, a functional resume is worth considering. If your education and experience is scant, a functional resume may be best for you.
Can poor mechanics counteract superior content, organization, and style? Explain.
Because the fist impression is so powerful, the arrangement of a resume on a page is just as important as the content.
If the page is arranged unattractively, is unappealing or is in poor taste, the message may never be read.
Sloppily prepare resume will probably do the same type of work if hired.
Unless directed to submit a one-page resume, present your qualifications in as few words as possible even if that requires more than one page.
Why alphabetize your list of prospective employers?
To organize information about job opportunities.
What is the purpose of an application letter?
An application letter:
Seeks to arouse interest in the resume.
Introduce it.
Interpret it in terms of employer benefits.
One of its functions is to introduce, so it is place on top of the resume, where it will be seen first.
What does an application letter have in common with a sale letter?
Because it seeks to arouse interest and to point out employer benefits, the application letter is persuasive and written inductively.
Like sale letter, application letters are either solicited or unsolicited. Job advertisements solicit applications. Unsolicited application letter has greater need for attention-getters, otherwise, solicited and unsolicited application letters are based on the same principles.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of sending "prospecting application letters?
Advantages:
You increase the possibility of finding employers who have employment needs.
You compete with fewer applicants.
You my alert employers of needs not previously identified.
Disadvantages:
Because the employer’s specific needs are not known, the opening paragraph is likely to be more general.
The process could be expensive.
The job application letter is one of the most important letters you will ever write.
Write a letter that reflects your personality.
Write the outline recommended for an application letter in your not4ebook.
What is the desired action in an application letter?
Read the resume.
Invite you to an interview.
Should the first paragraph introduce the resume?
Reference to the resume comes near the end of the letter. The final paragraph is the logical place making reference to it.
Employers are very busy. Is that a valid argument for keeping application letter short
?
Persuasive letter has to be long enough o give supporting evidence.
Some human resources managers favor short application letters.
They said a short letter that is read will do an applicant more good than a long one that is merely skimmed.
They see brevity as a virtue that can be demonstrated in an application letter.
Other human resources managers favor longer letters.
They point out that good employers are hard to find and the longer letters provide:
More information.
More opportunity to evaluate.
Answer the employer’s question: what can you bring to the table? By describing what you learned on a previous job.
Write about school as a learning experience that can be transferred to the job sought.
To be convincing, be specific, but original.
Sometimes, using the name of a person the employer knows is a good way to begin.
Be informed, but do not sound like a private detective.
Should you mention salary in a prospecting application letter?
Unless an ad requests a statement on salary, an application letter should not mention it.
Use empathy. Express ideas in terms of the employer’s needs.
Sound confident without bragging.
Subtle, deserved, compliments may help. What hidden messages might flattery convey?
Deliberate attempts to flattery will almost surely be detected. They are more likely be resented than appreciated.
Why avoid the narrative approach?
The narrative approach is likely to emphasize the individual too much and the employer’s need too little. For organizing an application letter, chronology is seldom the best sequence.
Avoid using words and sentences that have been overused by other applicants.
An applicant with strong qualifications need not press forcefully for action.
Before the letter is read, its appearance has already communicated something about the applicant.
Which 2 specific letter parts must be included on an application letter?
The size, color, and quality of paper and margins, letter format, keyboarding and paragraphing.
Use plain bond paper for this personal-business letter.
What criteria will you use to select paper for an application letter? Is using your employer’s letterhead for an application letter acceptable?
Paper used must match in color, weight, cotton-fiber content, texture, and size.
The watermark should be readable across the sheet in the same direction as the printing.
Using your present employer’s letterhead I unacceptable because you are not representing your company.