Supplemental slides from UBC Career Services' Crash Course on Careers

1. crash course
on careers
WRITING A WINNING APPLICATION

2. WHAT ARE EMPLOYERS
LOOKING FOR?
Photo credit: Okko Pyykko via Flickr

3. Employers expectations
• Employers do not expect you to have 5+ years
of working experience as a new grad
careers.ubc.ca

4. Employers expectations
• New grads typically have 0-2 years of related
experience considering their:
– Labs, group projects, individual classes,
volunteering, internships, family business help,
work study, part-time work, summer jobs, co-op
careers.ubc.ca

5. Employer expectations
• Not everyone has done all of these
experiences, but usually some people have
had one during their studies
– Labs, group projects, individual classes,
volunteering, internships, family business help,
work study, part-time work, summer jobs, co-op
careers.ubc.ca

6. HOW DO EMPLOYERS SELECT
CANDIDATES?
Photo credit: Alex012 via Flickr

7. Criteria for selecting interviewees
• Employers will usually judge candidates on
their resume and cover letter
• They are looking for candidates that
– Meet 50-75% or more of the qualifications
– Demonstrate relevant experience for the
particular position
– Write a unique and customized resume and cover
letter for each particular position
careers.ubc.ca

8. TARGETING YOUR RESUME
AND COVER LETTER
Photo credit: leeroy09481 via Flickr

9. Now… lets look at your documents
• How many times did you send out the same
resume?
• How many times have you used the same
cover letter?
careers.ubc.ca

10. What your
resume may
look like now

11. Targeting Your Resume
• In order to emphasize your most relevant skills
and experiences, first think of yourself as the
hiring manager.
• Write a list of all the detailed skills an ideal
candidate would have. Be really specific here.
• Avoid “communication skills” on your list. They may
have listed this, but get more specific.
• Think about what kind of communication you would
need to do in this job…
– Communicate within a team? Communicate with clients?
Write technical reports? Prepare presentations?
careers.ubc.ca

12. How do you share this experience?
• With your detailed list of skills, emphasize
which skills you have that this particular
employer is looking for
Job My
Skills Skills
careers.ubc.ca

13. Writing it on your resume
• You can summarize your skills at the top of
your resume in the “Summary of Skills” or
“Highlights of Qualifications” or “Profile”
section
• Also add technical skills, language skills, or
other certifications that may be useful (First
Aid, HAACP, WHIMIS, Driver’s License, etc.)
• Avoid highlighting points like “Honest,”
“Dependable” unless asked for in the posting
careers.ubc.ca

14. Writing it on your resume
• Consider changing your “work experience”
and “volunteer experience” categories
– Some options are:
• Relevant Experience / Additional Experience
• Laboratory Experience / On Campus Involvement
• Professional Experience / Community Involvement
• Academic Experience / Volunteer Experience
careers.ubc.ca

15. Writing it on your resume
• If you plan on applying for a job that requires
your lab skills and technical knowledge, you’ll
want to write them in two sections:
1) Below your “Highlights” section include a “Technical Skills
Summary”
2) Place your most relevant experience in a heading after your
education on the first page (i.e. Laboratory Experience, or
Related Experience, etc.)
careers.ubc.ca

16. Example of Lab Class on Resume
• Here is a sample resume section
• Note a few things that they have chosen to share
with employers and HOW they have done it
Heading is relevant to the job
Course Title and Year is used
Description of work
performed

17. Example of Coursework on Resume
Heading is relevant to the job
Highlights accomplishment and shows
relevance for job being applied for
careers.ubc.ca

18. Example of Special Projects in Class
Course Title and Year is used
Description of work performed
And project that makes class relevant
to job being applied for
careers.ubc.ca

19. Example of Involvement on Campus
Description of work performed
And project that makes experience
relevant to job being applied for
careers.ubc.ca

20. PRIORITIZING CONTENT ON
YOUR RESUME
Photo credit: pshutterbug via Flickr

21. 1. NAME – Make it big and
noticeable
2. Objective – List the job
title and employer. Keep it
short and sweet
3. Skills – Target the job.
Prioritize your skills from the
employers point of view
4. Formatting – Use
consistent formatting in your
education and experience
sections
4. Experience – Bring your
most relevant experience on to
the first page in one section.
Order all of the experience in
this section by reverse-
chronological order.

22. MAKING YOUR
COVER LETTERS STAND OUT
Photo credit: derekGavey via Flickr

23. Employers get bored
• 90% of cover letters look exactly the same
• Nearly every cover letter has this sentence on
it:
– “I feel that my academic background and skills are
a good fit for this position.”
careers.ubc.ca

24. Common Mistakes
• Most people try and summarize everything
from their resume on to their cover letter
– This adds no new information, thus adding no new
value of a cover letter to your application
• If you try to summarize everything, you end
up describing your experience very quickly
and with little detail
– Employers can read your resume faster than your
cover letter. Its formatted to be read quickly with
bullets and small sections of text

25. New Approach
• Take the time to write more detail in to your
cover letters – as if you were practicing for the
interview
• Delete the general or introductory sentences.
Instead, get more specific within the one page
limit
careers.ubc.ca

26. Strategy Broken Down
• Paragraph One:
– Write down which position you are applying for. In one or two sentences explain why you’ve
picked this kind of work over any other option in the world
• Paragraph Two/Three:
– Take your two best skills for this job, and tell me about a time when you used those skills. Get
into more detail than what I can read on your resume. Tell me about a particular aspect of the
project you worked on. Tell me about a particular day that went really well. Tell me about one
of the biggest road bumps you hit and how you overcame it.
– Imagine that I am sitting in front of you and you are telling me the story as if you were in an
interview
– This usually takes 5-7 sentences
• Paragraph Four:
– Describe why you’ve picked this employer. What do you know sets them apart? How can you
contribute to the team?
– Try looking at the company on LinkedIn for interesting stats and information about their staff
(it’s a lot like Facebook stalking)
• Paragraph Five:
― Request an opportunity for an interview.
careers.ubc.ca

27. Sample
Cover Letter

28. Final Tips
• Resumes
– Bring only your relevant experience together
– Target your resume with the specific information that
the employer is looking for
• Cover Letters
– Get specific with an example to demonstrate your
skills
– Expand on content from your resume
– Avoid some of the general sentences or phrases that
waste valuable space
careers.ubc.ca