Resume and Cover Letter Tips for Young Professionals

Trying to apply for jobs can seem like a completely overwhelming task, particularly when you are relying on two little documents to represent who you are and what you have achieved.

For most young professionals graduating from college in 2014 or the near future, a huge portion of the application process will be done online. This makes it even more important to have a resume and cover letter that stands out amongst the competition.

In the age of digital applications, one of the keys is to tailor both your resume and cover letter for each and every job you apply to. This may sound like a lot of work – and it can be – but if you have a good, clean working template you can tweak each time, you can target your resume to the specific skills an employer is looking for. Otherwise, they will likely discard it. Much like a mass e-mail, mass resumes seem cold, impersonal, or simply irrelevant.

Keep your resume on a single page and choose each word carefully! Your resume should be specific but also concise, so cut filler words or phrases. If you bury the important information beneath fluff, an employer might miss it as they skim through. The easier you make your resume to read, the more likely hiring personnel will actually stick with it.

It can also help to use a personalized resume headline at the top of your resume. Much like a career objective statement, a resume headline goes at the top of your resume. It should be a summary of your title and experience so that employers can get an idea of ‘who you are’ right away. For example, your headline might be something like “Nursing Graduate with Experience in Pediatrics” or “Goal-oriented Communication Specialist with a Background in Web Journalism.”  

U.S. News’ Money blogger Arnie Fertig also suggests making sure that your resume “shines with your accomplishments.” In other words, be specific about what you have done, how well you fulfilled your duties, and the skill sets you utilized in any given situation. Otherwise, your background will sound generic and won’t set you apart from anyone else who may have had “teaching experience” or “editing responsibilities.”

When it comes to your cover letter, this should be even more customized.  Again, create a basic template, but be prepared to edit and tweak it each time. According to Alison Griswold at Business Insider, the days of simply detailing your own accomplishments in a cover letter are over. “Today, you also need to demonstrate a genuine interest in the company and prove you know how to help it,” she writes.

Again, conciseness and directness is key. A cover letter doesn’t need to be more than a half a page but it must be specific, and it must be directly addressed to the employer. After your name, address, phone, and e-mail, the company’s information should be included. If you can find the name of the person who will be reviewing your application, it is important to address them directly. Otherwise, use “Dear Hiring Manager at (insert company name)”

It’s also important to include keywords from the job posting.  If you’re applying for a job that is seeking someone with time management and organizational skills, including those words will help get your application past something called an “applicant tracking system.” ATS is essentially an automated program that many businesses use to assist their hiring process. An ATS filters through resumes and cover letters based on keyword comparisons before a ‘real person’ ever reads it. If you include keywords you have a better chance of making it through the initial round of filters.

Detail your skills and use examples in your cover letter – but don’t repeat your resume. Again, avoid generic terms and instead give concrete evidence of why you “are skilled in team settings” or how you “have leadership experience.”

Business Insider also suggests including a hook or some other form of personalization in your cover letter.  Again, the name of the game is standing out from the crowd and avoiding the blandness that characterizes many cover letters and resumes. Balance professionalism with your own voice, your own uniqueness, and your particular experiences.

Finally: apply, apply, and apply again! New college graduates perhaps more than any other population typically have to fill out many, many applications before scoring a job.  Don’t be discouraged if you don’t hear back, and don’t expect to land your dream job after filling out an application or two. The more applications you complete, the more experience you gain and the better your resume and cover letter will look.

The Career Center on the UMaine Campus also provides all students individual counseling, workshops, and advising for resume writing, job applications, and more.

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