It was July 15, 2001 and I was on a 6 month stretch of unemployment.
Now I had done just as everyone else had and put in application after application week in and week out.
I knew at this point something had to change.
Money was almost gone, Food was down to ramen (chicken and 1 shrimp) and the worst part was I think I was starting to go a little crazy! There's only so many hours you can sit and have a staring contest with the walls.
But what was I to do? I was making an honest effort to submit as many applications as I could.
I was going online everyday and searching for new jobs.
But there was just nothing out there! I talked to a couple of friends and they told me, the key is to make your resume stand out.
You want to be unique among your piers.
Give them a reason to want to call you for an interview.
So I took my resume over to my sisters house to have her look it over.
When it comes to writing...
lets just say its not my strongest area: )She had me tweak a few things but all in all she said it looked very good.
Her one suggestion to me was to add a cover letter.
Now before this point in time I believed cover letters were only if I was applying for a job that paid 100,000 plus per year.
Was I ever wrong! After going home and doing some research I was able to find some information on cover letters as well as how they benefit you.
Most of the benefits that I found were mediocre at best.
But there was one that stood out and made me realize how important a cover letter truly was.
A well written cover letter actually acts as a sales page for you.
It allows you to speak directly to your audience and truly shines light on your key qualities.
In short it is the key to getting a job.
It does what a resume cannot.
Allows you to stand out among your piers! So now I was armed with the basics and had a new found energy for my job search.
The next thing I needed to do was write a cover letter...
Once again I had no idea how to do this.
I was actually referred to a site by a friend that not only helped me write the cover letter but showed me what an employer is looking for, how to format it and what you should never put in the letter! After about 2 hours of writing and reading I was finished with it.
I submitted the letter to 4 different jobs.
Two in the construction industry and two in the financial services industry.
You will never guess what happened next!
Now I had done just as everyone else had and put in application after application week in and week out.
I knew at this point something had to change.
Money was almost gone, Food was down to ramen (chicken and 1 shrimp) and the worst part was I think I was starting to go a little crazy! There's only so many hours you can sit and have a staring contest with the walls.
But what was I to do? I was making an honest effort to submit as many applications as I could.
I was going online everyday and searching for new jobs.
But there was just nothing out there! I talked to a couple of friends and they told me, the key is to make your resume stand out.
You want to be unique among your piers.
Give them a reason to want to call you for an interview.
So I took my resume over to my sisters house to have her look it over.
When it comes to writing...
lets just say its not my strongest area: )She had me tweak a few things but all in all she said it looked very good.
Her one suggestion to me was to add a cover letter.
Now before this point in time I believed cover letters were only if I was applying for a job that paid 100,000 plus per year.
Was I ever wrong! After going home and doing some research I was able to find some information on cover letters as well as how they benefit you.
Most of the benefits that I found were mediocre at best.
But there was one that stood out and made me realize how important a cover letter truly was.
A well written cover letter actually acts as a sales page for you.
It allows you to speak directly to your audience and truly shines light on your key qualities.
In short it is the key to getting a job.
It does what a resume cannot.
Allows you to stand out among your piers! So now I was armed with the basics and had a new found energy for my job search.
The next thing I needed to do was write a cover letter...
Once again I had no idea how to do this.
I was actually referred to a site by a friend that not only helped me write the cover letter but showed me what an employer is looking for, how to format it and what you should never put in the letter! After about 2 hours of writing and reading I was finished with it.
I submitted the letter to 4 different jobs.
Two in the construction industry and two in the financial services industry.
You will never guess what happened next!
Source...