Communicating your message, writing with style

Resumes
Activity: Resume from former Bren student and Josh were examined by class to draw attention to key elements that should be present in our resumes.

Important info learned from the examination of the resumes:

• Highlight one’s specialization, leadership activities, and relevant training
• Do not use paragraphs in resume- instead use bullet points
• Listing sports related activities/participation is not generally done unless it is used to highlight your leadership skills (i.e. team captain) and/or your ability to work in teams. However, it is necessary to carefully frame sport(s) involvement to make it relevant to job posting. Could potentially give you an edge.
• Account for at least the last five years of employment/volunteering- it is not necessary to account for a gap in employment if it was over five years ago.
• Use verbs such as led, directed, managed, etc. when summarizing your role at previous job.
• Emphasis constantly should be changing to fit job applications
• Under the skills and interest section do not list office suite and ability to use browsers as skills- instead list specific computer programs (relevant to job posting). Use words such as: advanced skills, expertise, advance proficiency, familiar with, etc. to notify employer of your skills.
  

Activity: After resume examination the class spent approx.10 minutes to review a class mates resume.

Cover letters

Activity: Cover letter from former Bren student was used as an example on how exemplary cover letters should read.

Important information learned from examining the cover letter:

• All good cover letters should have strong opening sentences.
• Highlight within cover letter one’s graduate work, strong leadership skills, strong writing skills (i.e. proposals that were granted funding), professional experience, and team member qualities.
• Keep consistency throughout cover letter (i.e. formatting, etc.)
• It is not recommended to use strong language such as “If you agree I am a strong candidate…” as it might come across to employer as too aggressive.
• Giving resume reviewer a specific time frame to when best contact you should not be done.

Activity: Class spent the last minutes of class reviewing classmates cover letters


-Grizelda Soto