English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

The main points I took from reading Chapter 15, Starting Your Career, were effective methods and examples of how to create a top notch resume, cover letter, portfolio, and how to have a successful interview.

After reading chapter 15 in Technical Communication Today, I felt as though I had gained additional insight into creating professional documents to aid in the search for a job. I found the information on two of the documents particularly important and informative. These documents were the resume and the application letter.

I personally found Chapter 15: Starting Your Career, helpful in techniques and methods to tailoring a stronger resume. The chapter goes into detail about the different styles of resumes, layout design, job search engines and how to construct an application letter. Although at points the chapters describe common sense material, most of the information was applicable.

As I start to prepare my resume and cover letters for future jobs, I found many ways to stand out from other applicants in Chapter 15 - Starting Your Career of Technical Communications Today. The most important is that there are many ways to create an effective resume and cover letter. The trick is learning which most effectively highlight your skills. Researching the process of applying for jobs may be as important as the work you put into creating effective documents.

Everyone should benefit and receive new insight from reading Chapter 15. The chapter provides tips on finding jobs; tactics for writing eye-catching resumes; help on writing cover letters; guidance for creating a portfolio; and etiquette and manners for acing an interview. This chapter focuses on every aspect of securing a job, but I will focus mainly on the resume portion. I believe the resume is the most important part of the job search process. Many people will say that the interview is the most crucial.

Chapter 15 offers a hard-hitting, quick cut guide to resumes, application letters, interviews, portfolios, and follow-up thank you letters. This chapter specifically discusses the importance of tailoring your documents to emphasize particular skill sets. Content can be emphasized by both design factors such as fonts and size, and where it is placed in the documents. Archival resumes, the most common, stress your previous experience by placing all information from educational background and prior work experience at the top.

Chapter 15, "Starting your Career," has provided me with an understanding of creating and compiling documents required for finding a career. With graduation quickly approaching, this reading will come in very handy in more than just this class.

According to Chapter 15 – Starting Your Career in TCT, job applications that are adapted to specific jobs or companies can be much more effective in securing employment than generic materials. It is also important to consider all of the people that will be reading your documents throughout the review process. With regard to work experience, the text recommends that writers avoid any exaggerations or embellished titles. These are the types of things that human resources (HR) will surely notice, and it’s possible that these practices can hurt one’s chances of being hired.

In Chapter 15 “Starting Your Career”, many subjects were discussed that would help with the first step in finding a job. Some of these steps included writing a resume, making a cover letter, and starting a portfolio. When reading the chapter I found mostly everything in it very relevant. The thing I found very interesting was the diagram in trying to find a job (The Job Searching Cycle). I thought that the Job Searching Cycle was a perfect way in finding a job. In my personal experience I have found that Personal Networking was the best way in finding a job.

First of all, I really appreciate the straightforwardness of the text, and once again, it offers direct and systematic methods for generating technical documents. I think that most people have, by now, made at least one version of a resume at some point, so there isn't much to say about this. But, 'Functional Resumes' are at least worth mentioning because I'm sure not many people have made this type of resume. The functional form seems to focus on experience related skills, where the archival resume is more of a list of 'what I've done so far' with a few skills listed at the end.