5 ms·
1. Write like you speak, as if told over coffee or beer. 2. Informal, but not too casual. 3. Right to the point; the first sentence is your summary. 4.
by edw519 16y ago
1. Write like you speak, as if told over coffee or beer.
2. Informal, but not too casual.
3. Right to the point; the first sentence is your summary.
4. No bullshit, you'll go straight to the garbage.
5. If it sounds like bullshit, it is.
6. Short. One minute good. Thirty seconds better.
7. Tightly targeted! It's about them as much as you.
8. Perfict speling and grammer.
9. Highlight what's important to them. (Do your homework.)
10. Enthusiastic without sounding phony.
11. Have friends read it. Get feedback.
12. Does it sound like a good quick description of you?
13. Have at least one differentiator. What makes you so special?
14. Strong finish with a call to action.
- pg 16y agoCuriously enough, most of these also work for essays.
- silvajoao 16y agoI think it's because all of the points relate to saving time of the reader. If something can be said in less and clearer words, do so. People who read a lot eventually hit texts that could have been way shorter and clearer, and develop a bullshit-detector to avoid such time wasters again. The reverse of this is that texts with high "signal to noise" are highly appreciated.
- tjr 16y ago7. Tightly targeted! It's about them as much as you. I think that's a great point. It's easy to frame your application from the perspective of, "I want a job", or "I want this job", or "I need a job", or "I need money". All of those statements may be true, but that shouldn't be your focus as you present yourself for a job. Instead, put the focus on what you can and would do for your employer. They are (probably) not looking to fill a job just for the sake of filling a job; they need work to be done in order to advance their business. How can you help them get that work done? How can you help them grow their business? How can you help them to be of better service to their customers? Be the answer to their problem; fill their need.
- tealtan 16y ago8. Perfict speling and grammer. This was probably intentional, but perfect is misspelled.
- mistermann 16y agoDownvotes? Interestingly, when scanning this list, I only noticed "grammer" was spelled wrong, when almost the entire sentence was spelled wrong. It's very easy for most people to miss spelling mistakes in your own writing.
- sofal 16y agoI think people who write typical academic papers actively break almost every one of those rules.
- Pyrodogg 16y agoPerhaps because academia isn't motivated by profit and the 'time = money' mantra. At least not so directly.
- mistermann 16y agoGreat list of tips. > 11. Have friends read it. Get feedback. But make sure their advice doesn't conflict with the other 13 points! The sad thing about typical hiring processes in most large companies is, the cover letter that is appropriate for the first level of the hiring process (HR) is entirely inappropriate for the 2nd level, the people that actually want you to do some work. You'd think we would have reformed HR by now, what with all the workshops they go to on process improvement, but from what I've seen the problem is just as bad as ever.