Cover letters are one of the many gate-keepers that can end your job search before it even begins. To ensure that you don’t make a mistake that can put you out of business, check out our latest cover-letter advice:
1. Know your reader. This advice has several components. First, in the literal sense, you should know who will be reading your cover letter. Do not use generic company addresses and “To Whom It May Concern…” Instead, do your homework and address your letter to the individual person who will be reading it. Knowing your reading also means knowing what he or she is looking for. Simply tooting your own horn and expressing how much the job means to you is a technique that fails to see it from your potential employer’s perspective, and can sink you before you even meet. Instead, think about what the job means for the other party, and then work backwards to present your case for how you can provide it. For example, if you are applying for a management-level position with highly demanding organization skills, it’s not enough to write that you are organized. You should instead write about how the workplace will be improved by hiring someone with your excellent organization skills.
2. Proofread. This advice comes up frequently because it’s so crucial. Even one typo can send your application into the trash, so be sure to triple check it. Two supplementary techniques for proofreading are to ask a friend to read it, and also for you to read it backwards, that is, starting with the last word and reading backwards, word by word, for spelling errors. Both of these techniques will diminish the chance that your eye passes over a mistake because you are too familiar with the material.
3. Follow up. Make your contact information clear, professional, and up-to-date. If you don’t hear back, take the initiative and contact your interviewer.
Photo © Marzky Ragsac Jr. – Fotolia.com
Everyone seems to agree that networking is an essential ingredient in landing that next big job offer, but there is persistent confusion about what exactly networking is and is not, and how to go about it. Here are some practical tips to set you straight on your path to successful networking (continued from yesterday).
Everyone seems to agree that networking is an essential ingredient in landing that next big job offer, but there is persistent confusion about what exactly networking is and is not, and how to go about it. Here are some practical tips to set you straight on your path to successful networking.
While most people warn to avoid dating your co-workers like the plague, a recent survey from Glamour shows that almost 41% of Americans have been involved in some sort of romantic relationship with a co-worker. This high number is understandable – after spending so much time with your co-workers, it’s only natural that you find you have a lot in common.
Within an office environment, there are many types of relationships. There are the bosses that you can barely stand to sit through a meeting with, and those whom you don’t know what you would do without. If you’re particularly close to one of your superiors, stop and consider whether he or she is a mentor or a crutch. A mentor is somebody who will help you to succeed based on your own merits; whereas a crutch tries to help you by taking care of things that you feel unconfident about. If you find that you have a friend who you go to for help with every little problem, you may be hurting your career by your overdependence.
Every day, the average worker sees 1,387,469,000 PowerPoint presentations. Okay, maybe we’re exaggerating, but the number is high enough to send even the most caffeinated among us in to a sleepy haze by the end of the day. Nobody really loves PowerPoint, but is there another way to give a presentation requiring numbers and figures? We think yes.
No matter how many years you work at a place, there are always moments that can shake your well earned confidence and make you feel incredibly vulnerable. It’s the last thing you need in a world, fraught with insecurity, anxiety and stress. The Christmas or holiday party is a prime example of such an occasion, and so is the annual picnic. In our estimation, the picnic is by far the most dangerous of these scary events.
Things have been going great at work for as long as you can remember. Your colleagues like you, and your supervisors are pleased with your efforts. You’ve begun to think of the inevitable promotion coming your way, and the raise that will come with it. So, you are shocked when you’re called in to a meeting with your immediate supervisor and dragged over the coals about the two-hour lunches you’ve been racking up. You thought you were doing right by the organization, that it was even expected that you would take long lunches with clients and prospective clients, but somewhere along the way you lost your perspective. Of course you need to entertain clients and future clients at lunch, but you can set the parameters of such meetings and resolve to stick to them.
It feels good. Sometimes you desperately need a snack to kick your plummeting blood sugar back up, but let’s face it—eating at your desk is never much of a good idea.
Once upon a time, it was a sign of enviable dedication if you slept at the office. It meant you were incredibly dedicated, that you loved your job and would do anything to help the company and the bottom line. It suggested that your work and your employer were the most important things in your life, bar none.