LifeLaunch! Module #4: Resumes and Cover Letters

1) One of these is just flat-out wrong, while all the others are true. Which one?

A street address is usually not on a young person’s resume.

You definitely don’t want to have a weird email address on your resume, like devilboy666@hades.net or hotfoxxxy@gmail.com.

You don’t list height, weight, social security number, marital status, or “References upon Request” on a resume (that’s so last millennium!).

Once you get a perfect resume, you can use it over and over.

2) Under an “Experience” heading, you could list what types of information or experiences to impress your potential employer?

Experience from student activities, community service, and volunteer activities.

Papers, labs, and special projects that you did for classes.

Just experiences from jobs, co-ops, and internships.

All of the above

3) Three of these statements were in the video (more or less with this wording). Which one was definitely not?

Put the information in order of interest to your targeted reader.

Search for superlative! You are the first, best, fastest, most something.

Your Uncle Charlie who owns a record store and smokes a lot of “medicinal” pot is the best person to review your resume.

Lying on a resume is a failure of creativity; you can figure out a way to get your points across that don’t involve a lie!

4) If you are going to cite a referral in a cover letter, where should you put it?

Anywhere in the letter is fine; they’ll find it.

It goes in the call to action.

Put it in the first sentence in the cover letter.

You don’t need to mention it at all.

Answer Key:

1: D, 2: D, 3: C, 4: C

Step 3: Read the Texts

Read The Overnight Resume, focusing on Chapters 8, 9, 11, and 12.

Read Cracking the Hidden Job Market: “More Proper and More Creative Cover Letters” (p. 164 ff).

Read Donald Asher’s Resumes: Monstertrak Tutorial.

Read this free chapter from The Best Scholarships for the Best Students.

Step 4: Explore the Job Market

Explore your alma mater’s career center Web site and see what they have to say about resumes and cover letters. Can your career center support your job search even if you’re not in the same town?

Step 5: Create a Resume

Create a new resume using the ideas in this module

Share your resume with your Career Center and ask for constructive feedback