To whom it may concern:

The cover letter is regarded by many nowadays as a dated professional standard. And in many ways it is; in today’s fast-paced corporate world, the employer finds it less worthwhile to read through this more verbose cousin of the resume, and as a result, the candidate is less motivated to write one. Nevertheless, the cover letter is still a very important part of the application process, especially for the intern or recent college graduate. It’s often your first or only chance to demonstrate your communication skills, and for this reason, it can be a great way to set yourself apart. (more…)

Think of everything you have done in your whole life. Okay, time’s up. Now think of all the unique experiences and abilities you gained from each of those events that contributed positively to who you are today. Now, describe precisely why each of those experiences and abilities happen to make you the most qualified person my corporation could hire for the specific position we have open. Oh, and do it in fifteen seconds.

We at Majoring in Careers are confident that in the previous description, we just put forth the worst resume guide you can possibly find on the internet today. Incidentally, over the past two weeks, we have also compiled the best resume guide on the internet today, although regrettably, it is far more specific and informative, and tragically simple to understand. (more…)

As previously mentioned, you want to sell yourself to the employer. This is very important to keep in mind when you are writing a resume. Ideally, you’d want to have a general template for what you include on your resume and then change the specifics depending on the company or position you are applying to. Even if you don’t want to do this, most of the content that is fit for one company is fine for other companies.

When writing your resume, try to think about it from the perspective of the employer. He or she is going to be the one reading the resume and picking the ones that work for the company. What are they going to want to see?

If you’ve never written a resume before, the best way to get started is to just start listing everything you can think of that may or may not be helpful for getting jobs. Don’t bother trying to organize or format it, just get a great big list of stuff you’ve done or achieved. Once you can’t possibly think of anything else, start organizing what you have into different categories, feel free to just copy and paste into our sample resume or any other template. Your first resume will always be the hardest one to write, it’s just like anything else. (more…)

As a final word on resume formatting, we will address a few decisions that you’ll have to make regarding the layout of your resume on the whole, including the word processor you use, the length of your resume, margin size, line spacing and font. These are all factors in your resume’s level of professionalism, and even though they may seem like finishing touches, they are important to decide upon prior to finalizing your content. Anyone who has gotten all of their content to fit perfectly into their resume and then tried to change the font knows what I’m talking about.

Word Processor

It’s always a good idea to write your resume in Microsoft Word. The “.doc” is a standard file type that you can expect every hiring manager to be able to open, but the same cannot be said for some of the alternatives. Be careful, however, in using Microsoft Word 2007 for two reasons. First, Word 2007 saves documents by default under the non-backwards compatible “.docx” file-type, and many major companies will not have upgraded to this new version of Office by the time it come to submit your resume in the coming months. Make sure to designate your resume as a “.doc” in the “save as” menu if using Word 2007. (more…)