ENG 305 SDSU Professional Writing Cover Letter Paper

For Paper One: Professional Writing Packet, you will prepare a cover letter, résumé, and Professional/Personal References page with three references.

This assignment is currently required for all English 305 classes at west virgina state. Surveys of employers who hire Wvs students have reported that one of the things they most want Wvs to teach their students is how to present themselves appropriately to employers both in writing and in interviews. A majority believe we are no preparing our students to be professional in applying for jobs, so Wvs had decided to require that this course teach you the basics of how to do this.

Since each of you have different majors, different work histories, and level of involvement in volunteer or extracurricular activities, your resumes will vary to some degree. However, this assignment is to produce a cover letter, resume, and reference page based on the recommendations made by the Wvs Career Center. While you may have a resume already prepared that you use, I want you to adjust it to conform to their guidelines for the sake of this project. Normally, a Cover Letter is limited to one full page, a resume is limited to one page, and the personal references are on one page. However, I have found that trying to squeeze these materials into a single page leads to a variety of problems, including students compressing the material with no spacing or leaving out important information, so the cover letter and resume can be longer than one page.

The Cover Letter

A cover letter introduces your résumé and references page; it should clarify how you want readers to review your materials (i.e., as part of an admissions process or as part of a job application) and highlight key features (explain elements that are presented briefly in the résumé). Although the letter appears first when materials are presented, it is best to write it after you have prepared the résumé and references page.

The letter should be consistent with your résumé in information and overall design (font, margins, and so on).

Format:

• Make your paragraph organization logical, and be sure that the information is clear and complete.
• Use block form or semi?block form.(See Career Center Examples)
• Single space throughout, with double spacing between the paragraphs.
• Use your complete address (either home or school) and include the date (use the same form you use on the résumé).
• Maintain a professional but not pompous tone. Write clear, natural?sounding sentences, and avoid phoney?sounding vocabulary.

Content:

The purpose of the cover letter is to present yourself to the employer in a professional way and presenting your skills, ability, and experience in such a way that the person reading the letter comes away informed about you and what you have to have to offer to their company, school, program, etc. The resume gives the specific details, but the letter’s purpose is to give a summary of your most important qualifications that fit the specific job you are applying for. One issue for this is assignment is that all cover letters are usually responding to a specific ad or job listing that tells you what the education, experience, skills, and abilities the employer is looking for. Each of you need to pretend you are responding to a specific job listing that applies to your major/profession. Since job listings ask for certain skills that you must address in your letter, I am giving you to requirements that you have to comment on. One is that you have excellent written and verbal communication skills. You will have to point out work experience or volunteer work that shows you have the ability to communicate to others in writing or verbally effectively. The second skill you need to address is that you work well in groups effectively. Again, you will need to address what work experience or volunteer work/extracurricular activities show you have worked in groups or teams effectively. You should provide one skill of your own that directly relates to your career field. Imagine what kind of requirement a job in your field would require and address that in the letter.

As you can see in the examples under this tab, Cover Letters are very strictly formatted and organized. You must have a certain number of paragraphs and each paragraph has a certain purpose. All of your letters should look alike on the page, and only the content will vary.

Do not have elaborate formatting with your name taking up most of the top of the page. It takes away space from the letter, and, believe me, employers are not impressed with your name in giant letters. They want to be persuaded that you are the right person for the job.

• Make sure your letter is free of spelling or typing errors.
• Do not use unusual (decorative) fonts. Rather, use a traditional serif font like Courier, Times New Roman, Book Antiqua, or Garamond (12-point); you can also use a traditional sans-serif font like Arial, Calibri Light, or Century Gothic (12-point).
• Abbreviate sparingly.

The Résumé

A résumé presents important information about you in an “outline” form; it should include selected personal information, as well as information about your education, extra-curricular activities, and work experience. It can also include specific skills you have or programs you have used that are essential to doing the job you are applying for. There are students who don’t have work experience and have not been involved in any extra curricular activities, clubs, organizations, etc. They often put in the resumes skills like: “Motivated”, “Hard Working”, “Willing to Learn”, etc. It’s far more impressive if your skills are not something every applicant has. If you have certificates in your field, specific computer programs you have used, and practical experience that is hands on, that will make you stand out far more than somewhat empty phrases like “Works Well With Others”. The employers need specific information on your education, work experience, and related activities that tell they you are someone they think will be an asset to their company and bring unique qualities they need in their organization.

Context:

• Prepare these materials as if you were in your last semester at Wvs. This means that you can state that you have just graduated from Wvs. It may seem strange, but this is the resume you send out immediately after graduation. For that reason, you can add some accomplishments you will have completed by that date. You don’t want to fictionalize too much, but you do want the resume to accurately reflect where you will be in a few months or a year’s time.
• Because your résumé will have some “blanks,” make up that information—with the understanding that the version you create for this project will have to be modified later. Don’t be outlandish, but this project is to teach you have to prepare these materials properly. If you have little work experience or few activities, you may need to create some for the purpose of the assignment.

Format:

• Make the organization easy to follow and the sectioning logical.
• Make sure that information is chronologically or alphabetically presented, whichever applies. Or you can use reverse?chronological order. That means that you present your most recent job first and work backwards. Often employers like to see your most recent experience first.
• Keep all information in parallel form (all fragments or all sentences; all capitals for headings or normal capitalization; all like items indented or like items lined up with the margin; rules between all sections; a slightly larger font for all headings).
• Include only information which is pertinent to your work or which gives an impression of your work habits. Don’t overload your résumé with trivial material that has nothing to do with your educational or work-related goals.
• Leave plenty of “white space” and make your information as accessible and attractive as possible. You want your resume to be easy to follow at a glance. For this reason, focus on the resume being clear and easy to read and not jamming it into a single page. For people like educators, they may use a Curriculum Vita, and they are usually longer than traditional resumes.

Typing:

• Make sure your résumé is free of spelling and typing errors. It must be “letter perfect.”
• Do not use unusual (or decorative) fonts (see above).
• An additional note: abbreviate sparingly.

The References Page

The last item you will add to your materials is a one page Professional or Personal References page. You will identify three people who recommend you for the position you are applying for. There is an example of a Reference Page under the Career Center material on Resumes. I want to you follow that example and provide all the information it has on each person. Now, I have students who get very uncomfortable with supplying me that kind of information on real people, so you can make up the names, addresses, e-mail addresses, etc. for those references. They do not have to be real. They just need to presented exactly as they would if the people were real. This is a very simple part of the assignment. It is more about knowing how to present three references clearly and accurately.

Your three references will be on a separate page from the resume.

Submitting the Assignment

Submit your first drafts of the letter, résumé, and references page to Turnitin on Tuesday, Sept. 15 through the “Turnitin and Peer Mark” tab. You will need to combine all three into one file and submit the one file to Turnitin by 11:59 p.m.Tuesday. You will then peer edit to other students’ sets of materials by 11:59 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 15. The final draft of the Professional Writing Materials will be due by 11:59 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 1.

My major is Civil Engineering Technology

my name is Mike anderson

my school is west Virginia state university

and, i’m not sure how many pages needed to have

and I have not worked before and have no experience

i hope you can tell from the instructions