Demonstrating Value: Communications

Throughout the job search you need to tell your story and demonstrate your value verbally and in writing. Here are tips for the different job search communications channels.

Cover Letters | Thank You Letters | Blogs & Social Media | Portfolios | Writing Samples

Cover Letters
A cover letter complements your resume, adding information that more specifically explains how your qualifications meet what the employer seeks in top candidates for a job and how you can help them. A good cover letter is customized and will encourage your reader to review your resume for more details. 

• Send a concise single-page cover letter with every resume, including resumes sent via e-mail and fax (unless the job posting advises that you not send a cover letter). If you send the resume via e-mail, the cover letter should be included as the content of the letter instead of as a second attachment.
• Effective cover letters indicate why you're the best candidate for the position. To get the interview, customize your letter for the job and company. Avoid a one-letter-fits-all format.
• Get the reader's attention in the first paragraph with a sentence that thoughtfully and specifically describes how your qualifications match what the employer is seeking. Indicate how you will add value to the company and team.
• In the following paragraph, include one or two specific examples from your work history, including the impact, related to how you meet the employer's needs. (New graduates may use examples from experience in college.) 
• This section can be formatted as a typical paragraph, a bulleted list, or two column table. Select the format that best conveys your information.
• Whenever possible, use words or phrases that are in the job posting (these are possible keywords). 
• Experienced candidates and those at managerial and executive levels may include more than one middle paragraph, in order to present unique ideas
• If you are intentionally targeting a position that is lower than typically expected or if you are looking at positions in another geographic area, mention your reasoning.
• Exclude any reference to qualifications you might not have.
• If you indicate you'll follow up with a phone call, be certain to do so. Affirm your credibility; employers advise that this is where most candidates fail to follow through. Note: Even if you do not write that you intend to follow up, do so anyway.
• Take the time to demonstrate that you pay attention to details; proofread each cover letter carefully!

Thank You Letters
Send thank-you notes within 24 hours.

• Send thank-you notes to each person with whom you've done informational interviews, and to anyone who has provided you with the person's contact information.
• Send a thank-you note following a job interview. If you interviewed with more than one person, each individual should get a note; customize it for each person as best as you can.
• Re-emphasize a point you made in the interview, add information you neglected to cover or summarize the strengths of your candidacy.
• Whether via e-mail or regular mail, how you send the thank-you note is not as important as sending it promptly. If something's come up and you're past the 24-hour window, still send the note. In this case, late is better than never. 

Additional Thank-you Tips
Invest in your career future. Even if you're not hired, a brief note to the hiring manager with whom you interviewed is a professional courtesy. Thank him or her for the opportunity to interview and indicate your disappointment, but also wish the team and company much future success. Who knows, you may meet again at a professional association meeting. Additionally, many people change jobs, so your paths may cross again.

As soon as possible after you start, send an announcement about your new job, and offer another round of thanks to those who helped you get it. It may be wise to wait until you have your new business cards so you can include them with your note.

Blogs & Social Media
Blogs and many social media sites are excellent options to showcase your expertise and catch someone's attention.

If you have a Web presence, is it enhancing or detracting from your candidacy? Google yourself to see what these Web entries say about you.

If communicating through the Internet is something you enjoy and a place potential employers in your industry will check out, this can be a great place to market yourself, demonstrate your expertise and connect with others through the items you post and the discussions you join.

Portfolios
A portfolio is a portable and purposeful collection of evidence of your skills and accomplishments, presented in an order and format to achieve a particular objective. Portfolios can demonstrate and market transferable skills, refresh your memory about activities, reduce interview anxiety, communicate high levels of interest and preparation, and reduce concern about falsification of credentials.

Complete a personal career analysis
What do you want to showcase? Analyze what you've done and brainstorm skills (technical/transferable), outcomes, and tangible evidence of these accomplishments. The tangible evidence may include the resume, formal letters of reference, informal letters from clients and/or colleagues, writing samples, photographs, computer files, disks, video, credentials, a statement of philosophy, event flyers, or agendas. Sometimes "evidence" may need to be crafted or recreated when nothing exists to represent a real competency. As you move on in your career, archive evidence into a working portfolio.

Categorize and prioritize
Pull the information together and connect each of the items in your portfolio with the reader. Make each item relevant through the use of captions, section introductions, a main introduction and the closing. Explain the background of the sample and why the reader should consider it important. You can organize your portfolio chronologically, functionally or around a theme. 

If the work sample has been recreated, truthfully explain what you did and what skill or experience it is supposed to represent.

Use a presentation that works for you, your audience and the items you're trying to include. Examples: standard report packets from any office store; one of the smaller three-ring binders, tape or spiral binding from a copy shop, a complete Web presentation, or a PowerPoint presentation. Since you may not get your portfolio copy back, use a reproduction of your samples rather than the originals.

Evaluate the portfolio
Evaluate your portfolio related to eye appeal, consistency, organization, flow, documented character traits and technical skills, wording, grammar, clarity and whether you met your goals.

Writing Samples
If writing is part of the position you're applying for, you may be asked for writing samples. Provide a sample of your writing that's as similar as possible to the type of on-the-job writing you'll be doing. Also, provide background information about each writing sample, its purpose, and its outcome, similar to the portfolio captions.

• Will you be writing reports or executive summaries? Provide writing that presents a concise and objective summary of information.
• Will you be doing technical writing? If so, provide an analysis of a product or service, competitive analysis or instructions.
• Will you be asked to do persuasive writing or grants? Talk about the results you've achieved.
• Will you be writing press releases, features or newsletters? Showcase something similar.

When possible, include copies of actual “published” writing from your job. If you don't have any published work samples, use samples from volunteer positions. If you don't have writing samples saved, try to collect them from the original source. In addition, you can start generating writing samples through work or volunteer assignments. If you do not have writing samples and don't have time to generate real examples, mock up an example that mirrors the type of writing you'd be doing on the job. Finally, prospective employers want to see clearly expressed ideas with correct spelling and grammar usage.

Adapted from material that originally appeared in the University of Illinois Alumni Association's Virtual Career Center
© 2020, Julie L Bartimus Consulting, Naperville, Illinois