Be sure your Web site and portfolio look professional and avoid un-businesslike content. There’s a fine line between opening enough of a window into your personality to intrigue a prospective employer and turning a visitor off with inappropriate family photos or off-color humor. Still, you’ll often find some elements in a Web portfolio that you wouldn’t find in a typical resume - accessible language and, as mentioned, sometimes photos of the candidate, which facilitate a sort of virtual networking through which employers can get to know prospective employees better. The portfolio provides a great opportunity for the candidate and employer to build rapport before an interview even takes place.

See some portfolio samples that not only tell success stories but also illustrate the branding described in the upcoming Chapter 8. Refer to that chapter for more exploration of building an online presence through telling your personal branding story.

One of the hot topics in job-hunting relates to the degree to which recruiters and human-resource professionals are “googling” prospective candidates. (using whatever search engine they wish, though “googling” has become an accepted term for this practice). The point of this exercise is to see what kind of information is available online about the job-seeker.

According to a recent study by ExecuNet, almost 80 percent of recruiters said they conducted Internet searches on candidates, and more than a third of them have eliminated candidates based on the results of the search.

A professional resume writer in the Quintessential Careers study said, “I believe the importance of an online presence for job-seekers parallels the importance of an online presence for companies 10 years ago, when the Web was first gaining traction. In time, as with Web sites for companies, an online presence will be second nature to job-seekers; the presence is like a resume but better, as it continues to promote them 24/7, and can provide more and better information than the traditional constraints of a paper resume allow.”

A personal Web site with a portfolio provides a way to ensure that your name will pop up in an Internet search, manage your online presence, and put your best foot forward to employers. (Tip: For extra visibility, buy a domain name that includes your name - example: maryhhansen.com/. It’s an inexpensive and important thing do.) Employers may find your portfolio on their own while searching the Web for candidates. Or you may refer an employer to your portfolio after cold-calling about vacancies or responding to an ad, thus giving the employer the opportunity to review the portfolio before or after interviewing you. Having a portfolio presence on the Web shows employers that you are technically savvy, open to new trends, and poised on the cutting edge.

Consider the story you’d like to convey with your site and portfolio. Try this exercise: Think of three major trends or themes that have spanned your career, ongoing patterns; for example, you’ve always been a people person. Convey this story consistently throughout your portfolio.

A portfolio published on the Web enables you to include links to all kinds of items that tell more about your story and support it with evidence of your accomplishments like writing samples, graphic-design samples, ad campaigns, photographs, PowerPoint presentations, reports, graphs, charts, lists of accomplishments and awards, executive summaries, case studies, testimonials, project deliverables, and even multimedia items such as video and sound clips that employers can access 24/7.

Job-seekers learn more about their own stories and qualifications by preparing a career portfolio, thus boosting their confidence and preparing them for job interviews regardless of whether they actually use the portfolio in the interview according to the Quintessential Careers study.

Creating a portfolio generates self-confidence and self-knowledge of your skills and strengths. In a sense, when you create the portfolio, you are constructing your story. You give yourself an opportunity to review and interpret your accomplishments and achievements in a way not experienced by those who don’t create portfolios. By using your print portfolio as a resource to prepare for interviews, you become more comfortable and confident in telling your story. Even if you don’t get the opportunity to present your portfolio to the employer, remembering your success stories through the visual cues you absorbed while reviewing it will help your interview performance.

Career experts generally eschew inclusion of information about family, friends, pets, parties, hobbies, health, marital status, and religious, political, and social affiliations. Opinions are mixed about including photos in portfolios. Some experts feel they humanize the candidate, but others caution that including your photo can expose you to discrimination. But even if you decide to forego portrait-type photos of yourself, incorporating workplace photos that show you on the job in such situations as collaborating on team projects and winning awards can help you tell your story.

Craig Wortmann of WisdomTools, Inc. describes a “win book,” a central archive for your collection of accomplishments-oriented artifacts, especially those providing positive feedback about your work. While Wortmann suggests pasting the items into a book, a folder or box is the way to go to store these materials until you are ready to create or update your portfolio. Wortmann suggests archiving such items as notes on daily conversations and meetings, ideas about strategy and best practices, stories of how you’ve impacted the organization, to-do lists, notes you’ve kept on the professionally developing the team members who report to you, illustrations and models that apply to your industry. I used to use a large desk-pad calendar to plan my workload. I kept all the calendar pages because notations of meetings I attended and projects I worked on reminded me of accomplishments. Finally, Wortmann suggests going through your artifacts and constructing a Story Matrix about them. The top row of the matrix lists the most important skills for the job you seek. Along the vertical axis, the job-seeker documents successes, failures, fun, and legends. See an illustration of this Story Matrix in Wortmann’s article.

Items that a job-seeker could consider including in a career portfolio:

• Table of Contents, Index
• Resumes (traditional and text version)
• Career goals/objectives/summary
• Professional philosophy/mission statement
• List of accomplishments
• Success stories/narratives
• Project summary reports
• Resume addenda, such as those described in Chapter 5
• Samples of work, writing, and reports
• Performance reviews
• Leadership experience
• Transcripts, degrees, licenses, and certifications
• Awards and honors
• Volunteer/community service
• Professional-development activities
• Professional memberships
• Letters of recommendation, commendation, kudos
• Reference list
• Clippings about you from newspapers, magazines, company newsletters, and other publications
• Photos of you in action in the workplace
• Answers to common job interview questions
• Research job-seekers have conducted on the company. This information provides a great opening in an interview to tell a story while showing the employer the research materials in your portfolio about your (positive) experience with the organization’s product or service.

Whether print or online, career portfolios should be filled with artifacts and information that clearly show your accomplishments and tell the story of why you are the ideal candidate for the position you are seeking.

In focus-group research with career experts conducted by Quintessential Careers, a career-development Web site, one respondent said of portfolio content, “I want to see items or artifacts that represent that individual and tell a story of accomplishments that relate to the job in question.” Another added that “the portfolio is an opportunity for the candidate to offer ‘proof’ of what is on the resume. Emphasis should be on skills, abilities, and accomplishments. The portfolio can be an opportunity for a ‘show and tell’ experience elaborating on the work history. Special skills could be highlighted.”

What is a career portfolio? It’s a job-hunting tool that job-seekers develop to give employers a complete picture that is much more complete than a cover letter and resume: experience, education, accomplishments, skill sets - and potential contribution to the employer’s organization.

In a time when many employers are skeptical of the claims many job-seekers make on their resumes concerning their experiences and contributions — lying and giving misleading information on a job-seeker’s resume ranked as one of the top recruiter pet peeves in a survey conducted by resumedoctor.com — a career portfolio can be just the tool to use to show your stories to enhance your telling them.

The two main delivery systems for career portfolios are print - a physical portfolio typically contained in a binder - and online - a virtual portfolio that resides on the Web. Each is best used at a distinct time in the job search. An online portfolio is most useful for enabling employers to find you online and for enticing them to invite you for an interview through its media-rich presentation. A print portfolio’s most effective use is once you are in the interview. It enables you to show the interviewer visible examples of your success stories, especially in response to specific interview questions.

Paulson and Paulson write that “a portfolio tells a story. It is the story of knowing. Knowing about things… Knowing oneself… Knowing an audience… Portfolios are [people’s] own stories of what they know, why they believe they know it, and why others should be of the same opinion.”

A career portfolio, also known as employment portfolio or skills portfolio, can be a versatile workhorse in job-search storytelling. As we’ll see in this chapter, a portfolio can help you tell your story in a number of ways:

• The simple act of creating a portfolio enables you to get to know your own stories better and develop new stories.
• An online portfolio can entice employers to contact you, in part, by presenting your success stories in an appealing manner.
• A print portfolio serves as a tangible and visual guide to describing your accomplishments in narrative form in job interviews.
• Either type of portfolio serves as a repository for all of your critical job-search materials.

Hansen, Katharine and Randall S. Hansen, PhD. (2001, Third Edition). Dynamic Cover Letters: How to Write the Letter that Gets You the Job. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.

Hansen, Katharine. (1998). Dynamic Cover Letters for New Graduates: Dynamic Cover Letters for New Graduates: How to write a dazzling cover letter that will get your resume read, get you an interview, and get you a great first job! Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.

Matias, L., When cover letters get personal

Quintessential Careers: Cover Letter Resources for Job-Seekers

Sample 1

Sample 2

Sample 3

Many resources are available and listed in an upcoming entry at the end of this chapter, and you can find a handy checklist here.

The principle here is similar to the language-mirroring described above. In his book, Don’t Send a Resume, Jeffrey Fox calls the best letters written in response to want ads “Boomerang letters” because they “fly the want ad words — the copy — back to the writer of the ad.” In employing what Fox calls “a compelling sales technique,” he advises letter writers to “flatter the person who wrote the ad with your response letter. Echo the author’s words and intent. Your letter should be a mirror of the ad.” Fox notes that when the recipient reads such a letter, the thought process will be: “This person seems to fit the description.” In the following example, the employer playfully wrote in the want ad that the prospective new hire should have the characteristics of 1980s TV character “MacGyver,” who was highly resourceful in dealing with sticky situations with minimal tools:

MacGyver to the rescue! Armed with my trusty toothpick and duct tape — actually my exceptional facility with hand-coded, highly maintainable HTML — I am poised to create high quality, totally usable Web pages for your clients. My three years of experience with Web-development projects make me exactly the kind of value-added employee you need in the Content Architect position you are advertising. My solid communication skills, along with total proficiency in all the areas you require, will enable me to make a significant contribution to your team.

Go to the employer’s Web site or pick up print publications about the organization. Pick out buzzwords and phrases. Play these back to the employer in your story. Employers who read language-mirroring stories conclude that the job-seeker “gets it.” Decision-makers love to see the organization’s own words reflected back to them. Both of these examples are take their inspiration from employer Web sites. In the first example, the site stated that the company was staffed by people who could, like Superman, “leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

I’m ready to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Knowing that you surround yourself with people who care passionately about their work, I’m here to tell you that I am passionate about working for Henderson Partners. My solid experience in serving the administrative needs of busy offices in fast-paced environments would enable me to make a significant contribution to the Administrative Assistant/Receptionist position you are currently advertising.

The description of The Limited at your Web site leads me to believe that your company and I share a philosophy about creativity, fashion, and customer service. That’s why I’m eager to contribute my experience in interacting with all kinds of people, combined with a genuine passion for fashion and a tremendous admiration for The Limited, in an Associate capacity, particularly with Express.

Cover-letter stories should focus on the employer’s requirements, the problems you can solve, and the results you can achieve. If the relevance isn’t immediately obvious from your story, help the reader make the connection by pointing out the skills and qualifications the story illustrates. For example:

The exceptional organizational abilities and detail orientation I deployed to set up photo shoots are directly applicable to the skills needed to plan and coordinate events. I can enhance your profitability by prospecting new business opportunities, strategizing communication initiatives, successfully managing client relationships, delivering presentations, and much more.

Telling a story in your cover letter doesn’t mean describing your entire career; that’s what your resume is for. For example, the following paragraph is too long and contains too many ideas that are not only unconnected to the job the writer seeks as a computer programmer, but disconnected from each other:

For nearly three years I have been a student computer technician for Academic Computing Services at Bucknell University. I am responsible for the repair and maintenance of all faculty, staff, and computer lab machines on campus. My duties also include the maintenance of our network and servers. Parallel with these responsibilities, I am also a lab supervisor for Academic Computing Services. I am also responsible for designing and maintaining several of Bucknell’s home pages for the World Wide Web, experience that has provided me with a detailed knowledge of the HTML programming language. In August 2007, I will complete my bachelor’s degree in philosophy. My liberal arts background has equipped me with exemplary communication skills. I have taken several math and computer science courses in my college career. My mathematics background includes trigonometry, statistics, calculus I and II, linear algebra, logic, and discrete math. I have also taken several computer science courses. In these courses, I work with Assembly, Pascal, C/C++, and several other languages. I am currently programming using C/C++ in the Windows NT and Windows XP environments.

Here’s how that rambling paragraph might be rewritten to tell a better story that relates more closely to specific skills:

• Having overseen repair and maintenance of all faculty, staff, and computer lab machines on the Bucknell University campus for nearly three years also qualifies me well for your advertised Help Desk Analyst/Programmer position. I also maintain our network and servers. My experience as a lab supervisor bolsters my management skills.
• The strong liberal-arts background I’ve attained through my upcoming bachelor’s degree in philosophy (August 2008) has equipped me with the exemplary communication skills your organization requires.
• I combine both my HTML programming skills and communication talents in designing and maintaining several Bucknell Web pages for the World Wide Web. I offer a strong math background and the diverse programming skills you need through my coursework in Assembly, Pascal, C/C++, and several other languages in the Windows NT and Windows XP environments.

Stories for the sake for storytelling won’t get you far. Be sure the stories you include in your cover letter will grab the reader.

It’s always easier for the reader to picture you succeeding on the job when you describe a specific situation, and employers are always attracted to numbers that indicate results.

Even if only one paragraph in your letter is in story form, try to integrate the story’s theme throughout your letter and tie the letter together by briefly referring back to the story in your final paragraph. See example letters starting later in this chapter.

Even the narrative cover letter has succumbed to employers’ insatiable hunger for bullet points, which are a nice way to break up blocks of type and make your letter easy to read. Focus-group participants responded well to a sample that included both a story and a bulleted section. It’s also possible to tell a story in bullet form, as in this example:

In my four years as sales manager of a leading medical-supply distributor in Redwood City, I directed the sales and marketing of the company’s line of breathing apparatus. During that time:

• I led the sales team in tripling annual billings, from $3 million to nearly $11 million;
• I contributed to a five-fold increase in company profits, for $150K in 2001 to $785K for the fiscal year ending in 2005.
• I guided a 250 percent increased in the number of accounts in our group’s sales territory.
• The success I’ve had here and elsewhere in 15 years of selling is not a coincidence or attributable to luck or magic. My sales prowess results from a natural ability to analyze a marketing/selling situation and deliver an innovative program that leaves the competition behind.

Use tables as another way to tell a story in a user-friendly format. Remember Mathias Carroll’s Project Supplement Resume Addendum from Chapter 5? An alternative to using the full addendum is to extract three or four storied key projects and use them in the middle of your cover letter, as in this sample.

Do make it as concise as possible.

Employers are not spending as much time as they used to reading cover letters. Ideally, your letter should be about four paragraphs, and one of those should tell a story.

One more type of story you can tell in a cover letter is the future story that address employer needs and challenges and tell how you would address those issues, as in these examples:

When I interviewed Ms. Kirkwood six months ago to obtain information about a career in real estate, she mentioned that the agency would like to establish a Web presence. I’d like to combine my interest in real estate with my knowledge of Web-page design and HTML programming to help you create a Webmaster position in your office. I’ve even sketched out some preliminary ideas on what your Web page might look like, and I’d love to get together and show them to you.

Because I recently assisted in managing one of the convenience stores in your company’s chain, I am well-acquainted with how to prioritize tasks. I oversaw organization of the employee task list. While corporate headquarters provided the basic structure of the task list, I modified it to meet our store’s needs. Now, I’d like to do that for all the corporate stores. Working in “the problem store,” as you often called it, I am certainly aware of the difficulties, and I have some ideas about how to solve them.

I understand that Hanover Information Systems deals heavily in telemarketing and database outsourcing. Maintaining a database can be very expensive for a company, and outsourcing this task can sometimes be more efficient. I am confident that I can help increase the company’s productivity by creating optimal ways to maintain the databases.

While short-term job and career tenures are much more accepted than they used to be, many decision-makers are still suspicious of career-changers and want to know what motivates the change. Their mental question is: “Why should I consider this career-changing candidate over someone who has always been in this field?” Your story must answer that question by showing your enthusiasm and passion for your new career as well as your transferable skills:

At the very instant I read your ad for a Merchandising Specialist, everything clicked. The description of the job became one with my passion, and I knew the match between me and this job was perfect. I’m ready to make my contribution in an environment where excellence is a given. I accept your challenge; I know I have what it takes, can prove it, and am poised to take my mark and go.

I became a chiropractor because of my desire to help people and make a difference. I strive to do the same with my writing. As a health professional with significant health/medical writing and publishing experience, I have a wealth of skills and talents to offer in the Staff Writer position you currently have open. I am eager to put my attributes to work for you at Healthy Body magazine.

My successes have been frequent and consistent since I joined The Buenger Corporation 10 years ago when it was a $90 million company. I played a key role in the organization’s growth to $1 billion. However, I’ve progressed as far as possible. As a result, I’ve decided to take on new challenges in a growing firm like yours that could benefit from my large-corporation experience.

It’s very difficult to explain in a resume such situations as relocation, extended family-leave time, sabbaticals, illness, disability, unemployment, travel, returning to employment after business ownership, and other employment gaps. The cover letter lends itself much better to these situations, but they represent another area for careful handling. You don’t want to tell stories that raise more questions than they answer. Nor do you want to call undue attention to an issue that may not be important to the employer. Certainly, do not belabor the special-situation story:

When I took maternity leave from my high-powered consulting job with Accenture, I expected to be gone for just a few months. Little did I know that giving birth to a child with autism would not only take me out of the workforce for six years to attend to my son’s special needs, but that it would inspire a whole new career passion as a special-education teacher. Now returning to the workforce with an education degree, I want to combine the communication skills honed through my past consulting experience with the knowledge I’ve gained as the mother of a special-needs child. I’m well prepared to design and deliver instruction, meet each child’s special needs, and ensure that my students reach their full learning potential.

Examples:

I enjoyed your recent informative presentation at St. Leo College and was so impressed with your knowledge of trends in pharmaceutical sales. Your talk inspired me to research Hoechst Marion Roussel further. I discovered that my professional demeanor and sales talents would be an excellent match for the world’s third-largest drug company. Noticing that Hoechst streamlined its labor force in 2005 demonstrates to me that you emphasize quality rather than quantity, a philosophy that aligns directly with my characteristics. I’d love to tell you more about how my solid academic performance, work ethic, drive, organizational skills, and strong interest in the pharmaceutical industry demonstrate my ability to attain outstanding results for your company.

Back in January, before I relocated to the Bay Area from Ohio, I wrote to you about the possibility of employment with your dynamic company. You generously took the time to reply with an extremely kind letter. You said that with my qualifications, I should have no difficulty finding a job. Having felt such a warm rapport with you from your very nice letter, I thought you might like to know that I’ve completed my relocation and am ready to enhance the success of a company like yours.

Stories that tell how you are uniquely qualified for the targeted job comprise another category of cover-letter story.

Tell stories that demonstrate your Unique Selling Proposition, or USP, an advertising term that refers to the one thing about a product that makes it distinct from all others. Express the one thing that makes you more qualified for this job than anyone else. Your USP story should answer the employer’s question: “Why should I hire this person?” Fotr example:

I’ve played semi-professional tennis for many years, so I am aware that the equipment a tennis player uses is extremely important. Through my international experience, I have learned that - like the game itself - the tennis industry is highly competitive industry. Improvements can give a company an edge over its competitors. I am convinced I can provide that quality and competitive advantage because I’ve done the same during my current position as Marketing Director. I knew that the quality of my employer’s marketing department drove the firm’s success, so I ensured top-notch performance.

My commitment to building the Hialeah School of Arts as an institution is exemplified by my having contributed to my community as an arts educator, where I have witnessed firsthand that creative learning environments in which the arts bring people together, stimulate feelings and emotions, and generate dialogue. I have seen the arts encourage, empower, heal, and restore neighborhoods, communities, and schools, rejuvenating them and bringing them to life.

In my last two editing positions, a 30-gallon trash can in my office has been the destination of 90 percent of the press releases I received. I could write a book or teach a course on how not to write a news release or mount a publicity campaign.

A participant in the focus-group research for this book commented that the storytelling cover letters she observed in the study offered “concrete examples of their attribute and skill claims instead of just throwing out the descriptors they think a prospective employer will want to hear:”

Six years in restaurant management have taught me every facet of the industry. Through these years our family-owned and operated company has expanded from a single unit to a nine-restaurant chain. Having been brought up in the business, I’ve dealt with a diverse array of individuals. I have developed, among other attributes, strong entrepreneurial, interpersonal, and motivational skills, which will contribute to a fruitful and profitable partnership with your company.

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My background in sales comes from two summer internships in which I progressed from sales representative to assistant sales manager in the telemarketing department and was hired full-time the next summer as the manager. This experience, coupled with my education, is a surefire asset to your bottom line. My creative and aggressive nature will benefit your company significantly, and I know that I will generate the results you are looking for.

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As marketing vice president for GenYX Network, I demonstrated my strategic ability when I successfully positioned our company as a leading Internet-based global distribution firm. I have consistently contributed my marketing management skills while motivating team members, fine-tuning marketing plans and goals, and juggling multiple projects.

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The direct functions of my position in the U.S. Navy closely parallel the requirements of your advertised position. I single-handedly managed, tracked, and reported the hospital’s financial position including accounting for income statement and balance-sheet items. I also gained valuable experience in preparing quarterly and annual budgets for the 30-department medical facility.

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Diverse professionals comprised the environment in my last workplace, BeautyGem. What I found to be most productive for the operation was to use my unique ability to bridge gaps to develop cooperative working relationships with the staff. I used a judicious mixture of solid interpersonal skills, adaptability to others’ needs, and a good sense of humor. I worked hard to deploy these traits with supervisors and colleagues to build an efficient and cohesive office operation that became recognized as highly competent and customer-service oriented.

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As a workshop teacher/facilitator and teaching artist for the Lincoln Center Institute for Aesthetic Education program in New York, I consistently applied the philosophy and practice of aesthetic education to my teaching and curriculum development. I have thus created a body of work that is a successful woven quilt of artful investigation, academic enhancement, and integrity in teaching and learning. I have proven my ability to create well-structured units of study that facilitate reflection, integrate all of the arts as teaching tools, engage all learners, remain consistently funded by local arts and state agencies as well as school districts and educational organizations, and enjoy considerable success.

In the last entry, I noted that focus-group members weren’t too keen on the cover-letter samples they’d be shown with stories that tug at the heartstrings. So, what kinds of “heartstrings” stories are effective? Those that make a more positive connection between the job-seeker’s heart-tugging experience and his or her ability to do the job as in these samples:

• A particular strength of mine is establishing rapport with patients, often perceiving nonverbal cues that communicate how they are feeling. I am then adept at motivating them to manage or even overcome their dysfunction. I will always remember my 88-year-old patient, Dottie, and the way she smiled with tears in her eyes after my therapy enabled her to write a letter to her first great-grandchild.
• Through my experiences, I have gained a deep conviction that improving the quality of early care of children is the best way to improve society. The care that children receive in these early years is pivotal to whether they become pro- or anti-social. The program I developed provided 60 children with appropriate guidance, nutrition, safety, and unconditional love, and had a lasting impact as they developed into adulthood. A much higher percentage of them than is typical for that population are now college bound.
• The world of insurance doesn’t seem like a breeding ground for the kind of compassion you need in a counselor, but for me it was. When I was in health-insurance claims, a family had lost its home during the Christmas holidays. They lacked the funds to cover their benefit premiums, and their coverage was about to be cancelled. I came up with a payment plan. I also put the father’s disability claim on the fast track and collaborated with co-workers to send four big boxes with wrapped Christmas presents to arrive on Christmas Eve.
• As the coordinator of a tutoring program for disadvantaged youth, I have developed my ability to motivate and make a difference. I helped a little boy, Jeremy, improve his reading and math grades from F’s to B’s. The same enthusiasm and persuasive skills that aided me in recruiting 115 new volunteers for service projects this year make me a valuable asset for your organization.

Emotional stories can be extremely effective, but they must be handled with kid gloves. While some employers might be touched by the examples below, focus-group participants did not find stories with a “negative” element to be enticing. One participant said, “None of these conveys a positive experience [that] would transfer to their employment and make them a better worker:”

I can make a valuable contribution to Maplewood Children’s Hospital, based on my past experiences. As a child I spent a lot of time in hospitals, and I vividly remember my feelings in response to the environment. I would like to ensure that children feel as comfortable as possible in an otherwise scary situation.

While working in a summer internship with the Red Cross in Rwanda, I was exposed to human suffering far worse than anything I ever could have imagined. It is out of the sensitivity I acquired toward the misery of oppressed people that I decided to dedicate my career toward trying to ease suffering. That is why I am writing to you about the social-worker position you currently have available.

Recently I have spent many long hours at the bedsides of my two brothers, who were both hospitalized for lengthy periods for separate traumas. I thus have personal experience with both short- and long-term patients and the problems they endure while in the hospital.

Continuing the list of stories you can tell in a cover letter:

• Stories — for new graduates — of how your education has prepared you for the targeted job.

New-grad stories don’t have to be about just your classroom education, but your extracurricular activities, leadership experience, sports-team membership, internships, work-study jobs, and the full spectrum of your college experience, as in these examples:

Having dedicated a substantial section of my undergraduate thesis to examining tradable permits as a way to regulate carbon emissions, I share the Sierra Club’s concern about global warming. As a recent graduate, I am looking to apply my knowledge in the real world.

As a student majoring in accounting at the University of Miami, I have gained significant knowledge in the accounting field. I understand that Baldwin wishes to hire someone who can develop an information system to track sales and inventory. I have developed several information systems related to customer orders using Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, and Visual Basic.

My recent experience and my classroom knowledge as an accounting major will benefit your company. As director of finance for an organization of 60 individuals, I functioned independently to reconcile bank statements and accounts receivable, billing accounts receivable, prepare accrual journal entries, generate financial statements, create an incentive program, and establish a computerized accounting system. Just as I achieved these goals effectively, I will be productive, proficient, and accurate for your company as well.

Through my internship with Blue Cross-Blue Shield I’ve fully deployed my marketing skills. I conducted a research study on the motivational behavior of the charitable donors by using communication skills and several business software programs. I have also successfully filled a local grocery store with campus faculty to participate in Celebrity Baggers during my first month as an intern.

As a computer lab assistant I gained invaluable hands-on experience in computer software problem-solving and was promoted to assist professors in coordinating and implementing technical software seminars. My effective interaction with the faculty led to my selection for a highly prestigious position as co-teacher of a university class designed to orient first-year students with college life. I took full responsibility for the theme, syllabus, class discussions, and lectures.

My resume shows that I’m a college student, but I am not a typical undergraduate. I am a highly motivated self-starter. I established a house-painting business to contribute to my college costs. As rush chairman of my fraternity, I was motivated to make my organization the best. While only eight new members were initiated the year before I took office, 22 new members pledged when I held the position. Nationals recognized this accomplishment when we received a special award for recruitment.