What makes a great résumé and cover letter? Linda Spencer, associate director and coordinator of career advising at Harvard Extension School, shares examples of a few strong résumés and explains what makes them stand out.
Perfect Your Marketing Documents
Spencer stresses it’s important to know that your résumé and cover letter are marketing documents. Also keep in mind that the average employer takes about seven seconds to review these documents. They’re not reading: they’re skimming. So you need to make it clear right off the bat how you can add value.
Strong résumés don’t have to be lengthy. One to two pages that feature your most top accomplishments works well.
Use Action Words and Customize Your Pitch
When highlighting your professional experience, use accomplishment statements rather than descriptions of your role. Start with an action verb. Then detail the impact that action had: Did you increase, decrease, modify, or change anything in your work? Finally, be sure to quantify the accomplishments. Data helps.
Your cover letter should be one page, highly customized to each position you’re applying for. It answers two questions: why are you the right fit for the position? And how will you add value to the organization?
Network
While it’s important to have a strong résumé and cover letter, it’s also important to remember that the number one job search strategy is networking. You don’t want to simply be reactive, applying blindly to job postings. You want to conduct a series of informational meetings so that you build a network of people you can reach out to when it comes time to start your job search.
Resources
Any Extension student can attend first-come, first-served 15-minute call-ins (via phone or Skype) with Linda. See Career Services for more information.
