English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

In my college experience I have never had to write a cover letter for any reason. Whenever I apply to a company it is always handing my resume to them in a career fair, giving it to them at their place of business, or sending them my resume online. Before reading these articles, I thought it was stupid to reword your resume in sentence form just to have a very slight possibility of anyone ever reading it. I have never had to have a cover letter for any interview, career fair, or online submission form; so I kind of feel like I am wasting my time in writing one.

Cover letters? I have never written a cover letter before in my life. From the readings it seems that they will not be read if you are applying for an entry level position. Does that mean we should not write one? Well they say you should dress for the job you want, might as well write a cover letter to show that you are serious about getting that job.

When writing my cover letter for this particular resume and job opening, I plan on utilizing several techniques outlined in the reading. The first piece of advice comes from the second article, Junk Cover Letters Kill Good Resumes, when it instructs you to ask yourself some very important questions about your cover letter, “Does your cover letter use a personal approach?” This means addressing both the HR employee/manager and the company itself by name. This tailors your resume and cover letter to this specific job application, and so they know you’re interested.

This is going to be the first time that I have written a cover letter while applying for a job and before these readings I was not sure at all how to write one, or what to include in one. It seems to me like a waste to that I would go through all that effort to write something that might never be read at all. Since most of my experience applying for jobs at this point in my life has been walking around job fairs talking to recruiters and handing them my resumes, I have not had to write a cover letter while applying for a position yet.

When writing a resume according to all the suggestions that were given from the readings, I thought that it was very challenging. I thought that writing a cover letter would be different but after reading the recommendations for writing a cover letter it feels the same as writing a resume. The document definitely feels like the shape of a technical document with distinct portions like an introduction, body, and conclusion. Even though it must be short and concise, a cover letter must represent a lot of information including background, skills, and even attitude.

I know the importance of a cover letter but I’m still a little apprehensive about writing one. All the articles I read about resumes and how they are quickly scanned made me wonder if employers will actually take time to read cover letters. We even read an article (by Rands In Repose) that said don’t even bother including a cover letter. However, I know in the end I will include a cover letter because I don’t want to be less prepared than another applicant. I guess it’s better to give the employer everything you can and then let them decide what they want to do with it.

According to the reading “Kairos and the Cover Letter”, one needs to adjust what they put on their cover letter according to what the job ad itself is asking. When creating a cover letter I will take this into account and make sure to properly answer the questions and conditions listed in the job ad without being too over the top. In the article titled “Junk Cover Letters Kill Good Resumes”, there are a few questions you want to ask yourself when writing a cover letter. The first question they talk about that you may want to ask yourself is “does your cover letter use a personable approach”.

I have written several cover letters for my job search but when I was writing them, the instruction that I used came in the form of sample resumes from the Purdue Career Center website. I never thought directly about a lot of the tips that were presented in the readings this week. For example, I never considered including company specifics such as a problem that I could help fix. I also never knew that using a conversational tone in the cover letter was appropriate. It always seemed that the resume had to be so formal, that the cover letter should be so as well.

Personally, I dread writing the cover letter. The resume is relatively easy. I can list facts about myself with no problem, but trying to win over an HR representative with a full page of pure writing always seems difficult. "Kairos and the Cover Letter" suggests writing with personality, rather than emulating a style. That's about all I took from this, as the article gave several examples but did not elaborate on them extensively. I guess the point is that you shouldn't be overzealous or cocky. Employers like competence, not cockiness.

Having never written a cover letter in the past, I was a little nervous about writing one for this project. The readings for this week answered most of the questions that I had about cover letters and really opened my eyes to the content that should be included. Judging from the readings, it seems like the cover letter will be used as more of a final cut (if at all), rather than an introduction. Assuming that my resume is good enough to make the first cut, and possibly the second or third, it will be up to my resume to explain the type of person my resume claims me to be.