Resumes and cover letters
- Jia Elizabeth
- Feb 28
- 7 min read
Once again, resumes and cover letters are a contradictory topic. As you go into the world, you are going to need to write both things. You can google all the templates you want, but I find it helps to walk through the why of it all. So, we are going to start with the basics. Just a generic resume and cover letter.
We start our resume with the header, aka you. I know the templates say to put your full name, your address, your phone number, and your email. Let’s cut some of that out. Start with just your name. Then put the city you are based in and your email address. Leave out your exact address and you pick if you want your phone number on it. It will look like the example below.
My Full Name
City, State
(optional phone number)
When it comes to font, color, template, or any other design choices, that is preference. There is no right way to write a resume. (say that sentence out loud, it sounds funny) I normally stick with a basic Times New Roman and 12 p black font, maybe put my name and headers in color. This is where you depend on those online templates for ideas.
Quick advice, if you aren’t going into a creative position, don’t go all crazy colors and fun shapes. The extra time you spend making a resume look pretty is not worth it unless you want to display your graphic design skills and creativity.
Right under the header you want a mini all-about-me paragraph. Could be 2 to 3 sentences. Speak in 3rd person. This is a marketing piece for any potential employer. Example?
Jia is a creative young writer with a passion for communication and storytelling. They have dabbled in international relations, childcare, customer service, project management, and small business operations. No matter what industry or position, Jia utilizes their love for words written and spoken to help others.
Now the sections of a resume that follow should be work experience, education, skills, awards/certifications. If you are still close to school, try adding a club section if the work section is lacking. The order you put these sections in is up to you. You can utilize a small left column where you put the skills and education as well as those rewards/certifications. Or you can do one ongoing column. I prefer the small left side column, but that is a personal choice.
Work experience sections tell your employers where and when you have worked. When starting out, you put on every job you have had. I keep an ongoing “master” resume that I am always pulling from for more specific resumes. In this I have every job I have ever had listed. Below is the basic information each job needs.
Company name / job title you had dates started–date ended
-Verb of what I did
-Actively did this task, example
-Organizing files and paperwork for company
Now repeat for each job. If there are gaps between working hours, you may be asked what happened. You don’t have to answer this question in detail; in fact, it is not beneficial for you to do that. An old trick is to say, “I signed an NDA, and am unable to discuss that time.” Any questions about it after you say that can just be answered with a small shake of your head. But that it is a slight lie, so ethically not great. More ethical answers can be brief like “family matters needed my attention” or “health concerns were being handled.” Each piece of information you give can be used as justification for hiring you or denying your application. It doesn’t mean the end of the world but just be aware.
The education section can be very simple. Just put the school’s name and the year you graduated. If you did any special programs, also list those. This can be like a summer camp at a college or an intensive program for an industry. Trade schools, technical schools, and apprenticeships count as education.
Picking skills you want to list is tricky. I always put any computer programs I know how to use, such as Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office applications, or whatever industry specific programs you have used. I also list equipment, for me these are cameras I know how to work. The less easy to decide on skills are the wishy-washy stuff like “written communication” or “organized.” This is a judgment call, decide what you think are your strengths. If you like a clean space, then you get the organized moniker. If you have ever been called a social butterfly, then you get verbal communication or customer service. If you need help picking out words, just look up a list of skills to list on a resume.
Onto awards/certifications. Coming right out of high school, you can list anything from middle school on. Did you get a student of the month award in 7th grade? List it. When you are a few years past graduating high school, drop the middle school awards, at that point just do high school and on. If you have any super cool awards from high school, those can stay forever. The others can be taken out as you age. Certifications are important to list. Have you been certified in any specific program or have any training in leadership skills. These are the things an employer wants to know.
And for those who need it, we can do an optional section of your resume, I keep a passion projects section because when working in project management I jump from thing to thing. This looks a lot like the work experience section most of the time. People who have few jobs to list or are applying to colleges/trade school programs should add a club/organization section. Just put the name of the club and the year(s) you were a member. If you were a president or some other title in that club, add that on right after the club’s name.
I mentioned earlier that I often tailor my resume to the job I am applying for, this is true. I keep my master resume with everything I have done since I was in middle school. Whenever I am looking at a job application, I go through my master resume and pick out the parts that best fit the job. I make sure I have the most recent 3 jobs no matter what, showing consistency in my work ethic. Then I add one of two of my older positions that are like the position I am applying to.
Skills are easy to match to the position. We can easily look through an application and see what they want in an employee. Always list all education and certifications. I found the following job posting (and annotated the important bits).
Now there is a lot of info there, but having seen that job posting, I formulated the following resume from my master resume. I focused on highlighting my experience with technology, my customer service positions, and my teamwork. I did change all the names of the companies I worked at and left out my personal information, but otherwise the details and wording are all mine.
Do you see how I added things about social media to my skills section and my bio? Normally I do not include any of my social media skills in my resume unless the position involves social media. I also adjusted the bullet points of each job to show I worked with social media and customer service. These are small changes, but they make me seem like a better applicant.
Cover letters can only be written for specific situations. Because each cover letter needs to be personal to you, the company, and the potential position. However, cover letters have a formula for them. Right after writing your resume, you need to write the cover letter. Below is the cover letter that would go with the practice resume I wrote. Is all this stuff made up? Yeah, of course. I am not giving you people my personal information; this is the internet. Instead, I am giving you examples of how a resume and cover letter can be written with a specific application in mind.
Jia Buck
City, State Zip
Dear [company name],
Thank you for the opportunity to work with [company name].
My name is Jia Buck, and I have a BA in communications. While earning my degree I worked on an online news media source as the Editor in Chief, taking on social media management among other things. I also studied public relations and social media content creation as both are interests of mine.
While I have worked in many different positions throughout the years and different fields, I have always stuck to customer service and content creation no matter the position. I started off as a customer service representative for my mother’s small business as a teenager and learned that I enjoy helping customers learn about a business. I have grown since then, learning project management as I worked for an international consulting firm in high school and creating social media accounts to help the firm reach more clients. Then in college I worked in news settings, still finding myself drawn to customers and content creation. Now that I am graduating, I am excited to take on a new role.
Through my passion for words and my experience with a camera, I feel confident that I could take on this position. I look forward to the opportunity to meet you and tell you more about my qualifications.
Sincerely,
Jia Buck
I will add templates for both a blank resume and a blank cover letter below. But I recommend you just try to write it and format it yourself after reading some examples. Feel free to go find some other examples or templates.
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