RESUME and COVER Letter-24 Hours

RWS 305 Project 3: RESUME & COVER LETTER (Job or Grad School) For this writing project, the rhetorical situation calls for you to attempt to persuade a specific reader in a specific organization to interview you for a job, internship or graduate program. This might be a “pretend” situation; that is, you may not actually be applying for a job, unless you coincidentally want to do that right now. Either way, the skills you use during this process will be easily translatable to future or current “real” job searches and application processes. If you are applying to graduate programs for next year, the resume can be used to help with employment you need while attending school, or for future reference when you are finished with school and looking for work. Furthermore, some graduate programs ask to see a resume as well. For this project, we’ll use aspects of the Personal Statement and write in cover letter style, which will be easy to convert to if you’re required to write personal statement for graduate program application. YOU WILL COMPLETE TWO DOCUMENTS*:

1. A RESUME targeted towards a specific company, organization, governmental department or university graduate program.

2. Either a COVER LETTER to an employer OR a graduate program that details and enhances the information on the resume.

*Each document will count for one half of the Module 3 grade. Grading criteria for each document are listed below. DETAILS ON THE DOCUMENTS AND HOW THEY WILL BE EVALUATED:

RESUME How to Write It:

• Refer to material posted on Blackboard in the Resume Resources folder, the material from the group presentation and wiki, and class lecture notes for résumé directions and models.

• Refer to the information you gathered for your Project 2 research paper for key details to reference and/or be aware of as you craft your resume targeted at the audience you have researched.

• Use the evaluation criteria listed below as a checklist for yourself to ensure that you are remembering all of the aspects of a successful resume. (Note: if you are in a specific degree program with its own resume guidelines, you will want to refer to those conventions. In this case, please attach a copy of the official guidelines from your department to your resume.

• Please use a fake address or put XXX on those lines so that your personal information remains private.

How Resume Will Be Graded: The resume grade will be based on the following four areas of evaluation criteria: 1. Visual Presentation:

• Appropriate typeface and size • Bulleted lists rather than paragraphs • Balanced spacing/white space • Consistent and visually helpful use of bold and/or underlining and/or

upper case to highlight headings • Visually accessible, “chunked” information

2. Format: Use appropriate, standard formatting (logical order & categories of information that are easy to follow and conform to best practices for resumes):

• “Skills” model: education and experience grouped according to relevance, OR • “Chronological” model: information presented in reverse chronological order,

OR • “Combination” model: most relevant information grouped according to

skill sets and relevancy; less relevant information presented chronologically at bottom

3. Content: • Information relevant to position desired and appropriate for target

audience

4. Writing: • Parallel structure for bullet points • Short phrases or fragments • Job descriptions starting with verbs in consistent tense (past for jobs in

the past, present for current positions; and form (first person singular— the “I” is implied but not stated)

• First letters capitalized on bulleted lists • Concise wording; omission of articles (“the,” “a”) • No “I” references • Information relevant to position desired • NO grammar, punctuation or spelling errors • NO typos

COVER LETTER How to Write the COVER LETTER: • Refer to materials posted on Blackboard and class lecture notes for cover

letter & grad school statement guidelines (content), formatting and models. o Grad Students review personal statement information and for future

reference, review read the articel titled “Leave Dr. Seuss Out of It.” • Refer to the information you gathered for your Project 2 research paper for

key details to reference and/or be aware of as you craft your letter to the audience you have researched.

• Enhance and illustrate with specific examples the relevant items listed on your resume, but do not simply repeat your resume in sentence form.

• Please use a fake address or put XXX on those lines so that your personal information remains private.

How Cover Letter Will Be Graded: The cover letter grade will be based on the following four areas of evaluation criteria: 1. Structure & Format:

• One page long; 3-4 paragraphs • Proper heading • Proper greeting • Stated objective(s) in the introductory paragraph • Qualifications detailed in the middle paragraph(s) • Request to meet in the closing paragraph • Appropriate closing and signature

2. Content:

• New information not on resume but relevant to the career you are seeking (graduate students addresses specific criteria of program)

• Enhancements to information on resume with specific details and explanations to indicate how your experience qualifies you for the position you seek

• Effective use of language and examples to embed ethos and pathos into your letter

3. Rhetorical Appeals: • Effective use of language and examples to embed ethos and pathos

into your letter

4. Writing: • Professional writing style • Varied sentence types • NO typos or errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation