6 Reasons You Wont Get Hired Without a Cover Letter

6 Reasons You Wont Get Hired Without a Cover Letter6 Reasons for a Cover Letter6 Reasons You Wont Get Hired Without a Cover LetterWithout a cover letter, youre relying solely on your resume to make a big enough impact that the hiring manager will call you back for an interview. Thats asking a lot. From demonstrating your communication skills to keeping the follow-up tanzabend in your court, a cover letter can strengthen your candidacy and increase your odds of landing an interview. Here are 6 valid reasons why a cover letter is absolutely necessaryIt tells the employer who you are and why they want you. Yes, the Objective or Professional Summary on your resume also does this, but only in so many words. In the body of the letter, you have the room to elaborate on your experiences and interest in the position.It showcases your writing ability. Resumes have strict formulas with bullet points and short, choppy statements. A cover letter allows you to write more fluently. Since employers like to see that you can communicate well in writing, a proper cover letter puts the right foot forward from the get-go.It lets you highlight your strengths.Your resume lists the roles you played and the significant accomplishments you achieved in your most recent positions. But when youre constrained to one page (or two, if you have that much relevant experience), you may be forced to sacrifice some details in favor of length. In your cover letter, you can explain and draw attention to a few elendeworthy experiences from your resume. It also helps start to demonstrate your personality, which is often even more important than your qualifications.It shows that youre serious about the opportunity.One of the biggest complaints recruiters and managers have when theyre actively looking for a new hire is the applicants failure to provide a cover letter. When you apply for a job by simply submitting your resume and nothing more, the hiring manager could interpret this as a lazy move on you r part. If two equally qualified candidates apply, do you want to be the one who took the time to write a cover letter, or the one who didnt?It makes up for a resume that cant stand alone.Granted, your resume should be effective if unaccompanied by a cover letter, but in case that resume just isnt as persuasive as you thought it was, a cover letter can make up for it. There are numerous instances where a strong cover letter - not the resume - instigates a callback.It sets up the follow-up.Instead of leaving the next step in the employers hands, use your cover letter to take control of the follow-up process. In the closing, specify a specific date and time that you will call them. The follow-up in your cover letter eliminates the waiting game so you can move on with an interview or move on to another job opening.

How To Find The Right Peop

How To Find The Right PeopDirectory Assistance Off-Campus / How To Find The Right PeopPosted by Caroline Ceniza-LevineThe job search strategy is simple identify your target companies, find the decision-makers therein for the jobs you want, contact the decision-makers and sell them on you as the perfect candidate, and Presto You get a job.The above is simple to understand, but its not easy to execute. Many jobseekers dont know what they want so they dont know what companies to target. Many jobseekers dont know how to position themselves properly. Sometimes, you do everything right but there is no job at this time, and you have to repeat the process for many more companies till you hit the timing just right. But the most frequently asked question that I get at workshops and events is how to find behauptung decision-makers in the first place. Here are 3 steps to followFind out the department name that does what you want to do. If you want to do PR-related work at Company X, does X call it Corporate Communications, Communications, Media Relations, or something else? Find a friendly rolle an alum from your school, a family friend who can give you that lay of the land as it relates to your function. Dont rely on general networking. Seek people out who work there or worked there and ask them specifically where is PR handled at X, and what exactly is this department called?Find out who runs this department and how it is structured. Once you know that X does PR out of their Media Relations department, find out who runs Media Relations, who s/he reports to, works for him or her, and what everybody is responsible for. In other words, get as close to filling out an organizational chart for Media Relations at X as you can. Again, this means you cant rely on general networking but must ask specific questions. Ask the friendly ally from above. Other good sources could be a PR trade association, where an expert there may know the structure of different firms. You want to kno w Who runs Media Relations? How big is that department? How is the work divided? Find out how this department hires its people. Do they hire only experienced people from similar firms, or do they have entry-level spots? Do they only take referrals, use HR to post, work with a specific search firm? What skills, background and experience do they hire? Some firms only want people with agency experience. Some people hire at the entry-level and promote from within. Some are not specific in the methods they use. You need to know what they do so you can position yourself accordingly.After you have the above information, you are ready to make your approach. You know names and have a context within which you can promote yourself effectively. Now, you need to be brave enough to act on this information. But having this level of detailed information is a big confidence-booster. You will find that now that you know something (a lot in fact) about your target you will feel more comfortable when y ou approach them. Knowledge is power in the job search.Directory Assistance On-Campus / How To Find The Right People For Your SearchPosted by Connie Thanasoulis-Cerrachio An on-unigelnde job search requires the identification of key players that can make or break your search. Here is a list of such players with strategies of how to work with themDirector of Career Services This is someone you want to know and impress. This person knows all the firms, about all their opportunities, and even the business managers that ultimately hire the candidates. Attend an orientation at Career Services and listen to everything that is said there. Then, follow their instructions and get to know them personally. They can move heaven and earth for you. When I recruited at Citigroup, Warner-Lambert, and Merrill Lynch, I always had strong relationships with these folks and what they said and who they referred carried a lot of weight. Other Career Services Staff Career Services at larger schools have va rious contacts per discipline. I always worked closely with the Financial Services rep and got to know them very well. They got me the best dates on campus, and I followed up with a student they thought highly of. It wasnt one hand washing another it was mutual respect and appreciation. Big hint here have manners, and treat them all like gold. If its a smaller school you go to, the rule still applies treat everyone in career services like gold.Professors Many of them are asked by companies to participate in projects and many business representatives give guest lectures. They can have ins with important business reps so always seek to impress.Company representatives marketing events When Wharton was one of our target schools, we went on campus over 20 times a year. Attend as many of these events as possible if you are very interested in the company because your attendance is noticed and does count towards serious consideration.Your school peers You never know who people know. I jus t conducted a mock interview with a young man whos father knows EVERYONE is the accounting field EVERYONE. Be good to your peers because you never know when they will extend a helping hand. Rule of thumb treat everyone with respect and try to help as many people as you can. I believe it all comes around in the end.When conducting an on-campus job search, keep those antennae up high. Notice everything. Participate in as much as you can. Treat everyone with respect. Try to help people even when there is nothing in it for you. Pay attention, and I think youll be surprised in the good karma that will come right back to you.

How to Spot Junk Mail Without Opening the Envelope

How to Spot Junk Mail Without Opening the EnvelopeHow to Spot Junk Mail Without Opening the EnvelopeJunk mail, which is sometimes called direct mail, is the advertising that direct marketing agencies strive to get you to open. All those offers for leistungspunkt cards, insurance, dentists, cars, fast food, and anything else that offers direct sales, are generally fighting a losing battle to get your attention. In the past, direct mail would scream and shout the offers at you, loud and proud. Huge percentage rates on the envelopes for credit card offers were commonplace. Loud, colorful graphics and in-your-face headlines all shouted free, look at me, read me, open me, dont ignore me It was the epitome of junk mail. Of course, consumers quickly became savvy to those methods, and it was not difficult to spot the genuine letters and packages from the ones trying to sell something. Thats when junk mail creators became more sneaky, and started analyzing what people open, and what they thro w away. Its becoming more difficult to separate the bad offers from the good, and the personal mail from the corporate. Oh, and it should be noted that genuinely good direct mail is honest, doesnt stoop to these tricks and will capture your attention in a positive way. But, with that said, here are the signs to look for when trying to dig out the dregs. The Presorted PostmarkThis is the biggest giveaway of junk mail. Look in the postage area and if you binnensee either PRESORTED or PRSRT STD, its almost certainly junk mail. You usually need to send over 500 pieces of mail to qualify for the discounted presorted rate, and how many times do people send out that amount of mail at once? The USPS likes this kind of mail because it is already presorted into zip codes, hence the discount for time saved. It used to be easy to spot this presorted mail, but once again, both the USPS and the direct mail agencies are looking for new ways to get past your guard. Now, junk mail can feature an act ual postage stamp, although if you look closely you will still see PRESORTED or PRSRT STD printed somewhere on it. Junk mail can also feature metered postage (that red or black looking mark made with ink) but again, look for the telltale words.Oh, and anything important, such as personal correspondence, is never sent presorted if you see something that looks like a check or a bill, its not. Fake Handwriting Another dead giveaway of junk mail is the desperate attempt to look like it has come from a real live person. For this reason, direct mail and junk mail is starting to imitate the mail we receive from friends and family, but at the moment its not difficult to tell them apart. First, genuine handwriting is never on perfectly straight lines. So, that right there is a huge indication that youre about to open a crummy offer. However, recently there have been attempts to offset the lines to mimic real handwriting. There are other clues you can look for. One of the big indicators i s the identical letters used in the name and address. As real people, we never write any two letters exactly the same. But the fonts used to generate these letters are identical. Or, 99% of the time there is. Now, some fonts feature 3 or 4 variations of the same letters, to convince people that the handwriting came from a person. In that case, look at the pressure used, and the variation in the color of the ink. Real handwriting creates dark and light shades of ink, and the pressure of the pen on the paper leaves indents. If that too has been mimicked, you should definitely open this piece of mail. Anyone who went to that amount of effort to trick you into thinking it was written by a real person clearly has something interesting to say. And how long does it take to open an envelope anyway? Fear Tactics and Urgency Anything telling you that time is running out, or you must open the letter quickly, is guaranteed to be a piece of junk mail. These kinds of statements are tacky, and if you genuinely owe money to someone and have very little time to pay, theyre not going to send you a letter via presorted mail. In fact, the first communication will usually be an email or a phone call, because its cheaper and more reliable. Sometimes, a real institution will send you a communication that is actually telling you time is running out to pay something or file paperwork. However, they will not advertise this fact all over the envelope. They may use a different color for the envelope than their usual correspondence (for instance, some institutions use yellow or red envelopes for overdue bills), or they may print in a different colored ink. But the warnings will never be slapped all over the letter or package. Official Verbiage and Warnings This is perhaps the most sneaky method being used of late, and most of the time it is coming from financial institutions wanting you to refinance your mortgage. On the envelope, which often looks like a bill, you will see things like mail tampering is a federal offense or for the recipient only. A genuine piece of correspondence from a financial institution does not go out of its way to look this official and scary. Most of the time your bank will just mail you a letter with your name and address on it. These warnings, seals, eagle heads, and other official-looking symbols are all designed to make you think this is an important piece of mail you must open. Dont open it. Throw it away. Its junk.