The Google Resume (9 page)

Assessment

Though no résumé is perfect, this one is pretty darn good. Almost all of her bullets are accomplishments, and she doesn’t waste time talking about her job in generalities. Many of her accomplishments have measurable impacts.

Parting Words Truthfully, getting your résumé into the “pretty good” stage is not that hard. Most résumés that I see fail in one of three ways:

1.
Too big
. Having a multipage résumé does not make you look more experienced—it just makes you look less concise. You should keep your résumé to one page if you have less than 10 years of experience, and two pages if you have more. You really don’t need more space than that—it won’t win you any favors.

Back in the days of typewriters and snail mail, cover letters were nearly as widespread as résumés. Candidates dutifully banged out a custom note, affixed their résumé, and sent them off in a stamped and sealed envelope.

With virtually all résumés submitted electronically nowadays, cover letters are often optional. However, if you are contacting a recruiter or hiring manager to submit your résumé, your e-mail
is
your cover letter and should adhere to the standard cover letter format.

Your cover letter is a key marketing document; a strong cover letter will make someone open up your résumé to learn more.

Why a Cover Letter?

Cover letters serve two purposes. First, they enable a recruiter to quickly glance at a document to see if you match the position’s requirements. Second, they allow the company to ask for a writing sample, without directly asking for it.

Why isn’t your résumé good enough? Your résumé is a list of accomplishments broken down by job. Your biggest accomplishments may have to do with building a team to create a new feature, or resolving an issue with a major supplier. That lets the recruiter know that you can accomplish great things, but it doesn’t necessarily inform her of your specific, relevant skills. She may be looking for data modeling, or statistical analysis, or something more “warm and fuzzy” like strong management skills.

Your résumé lets her know that you can get things done; your cover letter demonstrates your relevance to the job. Essentially, it’s a teaser. It’s a way to say, “I have what you’re looking for, now open my résumé to see what I’ve accomplished.”

Additionally, in writing-heavy roles, your cover letter is a way for the company to see your writing skills. Why not just come out and ask for a writing sample? Well, first, there’s no reason to have you provide a make-believe business writing sample, as though you were some second grader writing a letter to the president. Second, it allows you to manufacture it too much. They want to see how you write “in the wild.” You’d take extra special care to write well if you knew they were examining your every word. (And now, hopefully, you will.)

The Three Types of Cover Letter

Whether your cover letter is solicited, unsolicited, or “broadcasted,” it will follow a similar format and will have similar goals. Your goal is still to excite the reader enough that he puts down your cover letter and picks up your résumé—and, hopefully, the phone. The difference lies in the degree to which the cover letter can be targeted.

Solicited Cover Letter

Most cover letters are solicited; that is, the cover letter is responding to a specific job opening advertised online, on your campus, or anywhere else. The job opening likely lists specific skills or backgrounds desired, and you need to appeal to those specific attributes. Your cover letter should explain exactly how you match those qualities, and should provide evidence using your prior experience.

“If you don’t exactly match every requirement, don’t let that stop you,” says Matt, a former Apple recruiter. “Sometimes ads are written by recruiters or managers who don’t understand that the combination of skills they want is impossible or very unlikely. Or sometimes you have other skills that may compensate for your weaknesses.”

Unsolicited Cover Letter/Cold Call Letter

An unsolicited cover letter taps the hidden job market by contacting recruiters about positions that may not be advertised. Obviously, getting a job through these means is more challenging, but not at all impossible. Sometimes positions are created only when a sufficiently good candidate comes along, as is often the case with start-ups. Or other times, a friend inside the company might be able to tip you off to a new opening that has only been advertised internally.

Either way, your approach is the same: you need to identify what you think the company would want and match that. You can often extrapolate the company’s needs from looking at the company’s other job ads, or from looking at ads for the equivalent job at other companies.

If you think this approach seems hard, you’re right. But the good news is that you will have substantially less competition if you pursue it.

Broadcast Letter

While all cover letters should be tailored, sometimes you have no choice but to create a general cover letter. This is often the case when using online job boards. The job board might encourage you to post a cover letter along with your résumé.

What to do? You should be as specific as possible, while not excluding yourself from any desired positions. If you’re looking for a sales or customer support role, emphasize the skills that those positions have in common (communication, etc.).

Recruiters won’t expect your cover letter to be very specific but will look at it for a quick list of your accomplishments and skill set, so make sure to really emphasize what you’ve achieved in your career.

The Structure

Cover letters can be so regimented that they remind me of madlibs:

Yawn. But at least the structure makes it easy to write a cover letter. You don’t need to be creative or even a beautiful writer to write a powerful cover letter. You just need to be able to communicate your thoughts clearly and succinctly.

A cover letter should roughly match the following template:

While this letter certainly won’t win any awards for prose or creativity, it’s short, concise, and gets the point across: that you match the employer’s needs and that you can perform the job effectively.

Many candidates shy away from using bullets in “business” writing—don’t! In cover letters, as in business, you don’t have to be—and
shouldn’t
be—William Shakespeare; you just need to communicate clearly and effectively.

Five Traits of a Strong Cover Letter

A cover letter is not a chance to tell your life story, nor is it a chance for you to list every accomplishment you’ve ever had. A cover letter should introduce you, demonstrate how your background matches the job description, and state your interest in the position.

When writing yours, keep these five suggestions in mind.

1. Tailored

Recruiters are busy and, frankly, often just looking for an excuse to toss your application in the trash. One down, a few hundred to go.

Of course, they want to hire, too—their job depends on it. Their job description will tell you what they’re looking for; it’s up to you to show that you match it as closely as possible. If they say they want a highly quantitative marketer, then you must address that in your response.

Be wary of simply modifying an existing cover letter for a new position. The reason is that it can be tempting to leave in lines that are arguably important in general, but perhaps not as relevant to this specific position. People have a funny tendency to get attached to what they write and not want to remove parts of it.

Ideally, you should write a fresh cover letter for each application. If you won’t do that, though, be sure to keep one finger on the “delete” key. It’ll come in handy on any good cover letter.

What If There Is No Job Description?

In cases where there is no job description to be found, then you’ll need to guess at the preferred skill set. If it’s a software engineering job, try to find out what languages or technologies the team uses. For a job that’s heavy on communication, call attention to your public speaking skills.

You can also track down other job ads, both from similar positions with the same company and from the same position at other companies. Look for similarities. If you find that the company always looks for someone with a particular background or that one skill is highly in demand for your position at other companies, then you can safely assume that this position will desire it, too.

2. Supported with Evidence

Anyone can say that they are hardworking, or have strong communication skills; not everyone can prove it. Use your education, work experience, and accomplishments to show the recruiter that you have the skills they need.

As with your résumé, accomplishments, especially when quantified, carry more weight than any vague discussion of your background:

I have strong public speaking skills, a skill which was developed through four years of college Speech & Debate Team. In my final year on the team, I placed second in the state-wide Impromptu Speaking category.

3. Structured and Concise

Ever had a teammate who just rambled on and on in meetings? It’s not very much fun. So why make your cover letter like that?

Your cover letter should show that you can communicate in a concise and structured way. All you need is three or four short paragraphs that clearly address the company’s needs.

And remember, when people say that cover letters should be only one page, they don’t mean one
full
page. Babbling is not rewarded.

4. Simple, Direct Writing

Though he may be the most acclaimed writer of all time, Shakespeare would make an awful business writer. Subtle, hidden meanings that high school sophomores need to re-read six times to even vaguely comprehend—give me a break!

If you think I’m joking, check out this sentence I saw on a cover letter:

In my quest to embrace new opportunities and challenges, I am riveted by the chance to embark on a new path where I can utilize to the fullest extent my immense technical comprehension and where my dedication to personal excellence may thrive.

I suppose this candidate was trying to demonstrate his expansive vocabulary, but no one would be impressed by this.

You should write to communicate, not to impress. Use short, familiar words, and get to the point.

5. Professional

As a cover letter is often the best and only writing example a company has, being professional and using correct spelling and grammar is extremely important. You should proofread your own letter multiple times, and give it to a trusted friend to review as well.

Additionally, you should address the letter to the individual, if you know his or her name. If you do not know the recipient’s name, never assume a gender. Who would do this? Lots of people, it turns out.

One start-up founder discovered this firsthand when she posted a job opening for her new company. The ad lacked her name, but mentioned that her background included a PhD in electrical engineering. Over 70 percent of applicants chose to address the recipient of the cover letter as “Dear Sir” instead of a more gender neutral opener.

Don’t make this mistake. HR departments are awfully touchy these days about sexism.

An A+ Cover Letter

Want to move away from the boilerplate cover letter? Check out this A+ cover letter:

What makes this cover letter so fantastic is that it shows a bit of character while also demonstrating one’s relevant skills (that were presumably mentioned in the job description). The discussion of skills is backed up with evidence, and the candidate has obviously done her research.

This is the kind of cover letter that’ll make your recruiter salivate.

References

“One time I called a candidate’s reference and she said that the candidate had been fired for theft—a fact the candidate had not revealed to me,” recounted Matthew, a serial tech entrepreneur. “Another time I called and discovered that the reference himself had been fired months earlier. And then there was the time that the reference paused, took a deep breath, and explained to me that he’s found giving bad references comes back to haunt him. He prefers to avoid that situation now, and he hoped I would
understand
. The pause before the last word was suggestive, to say the least. Oh, and I can’t forget my favorite: I once called a reference only to notice that her voice sounded remarkably similar to the candidate’s. I called back later for some additional ‘clarification,’ only to get redirected to the candidate’s own voicemail.”