Job Searching

Every resume should include your name and contact information. Make it easy for employers to follow up with you by including your telephone number and professional email address. You might also add your home city or address.

Most job postings include an educational requirement. In this case, you’ll want to highlight your education so that employers can quickly see you meet that requirement. Here are some key points you might cover in this section:

• Name of the school, TAFE or university you attended
• Certificates, diplomas or degrees you have earned
• Dates attended or date of graduation
• Awards, honours, licenses, or certifications received
• Participation, including any leadership roles, in clubs, extracurricular activities, and organisations

Most importantly, every resume should include a section that highlights your employment history or work experience. You might add internships here as well. Describe your employment history with the following information:

• Name of the company
• Dates employed
• Job title
• Description of relevant job responsibilities
• Measurable or key accomplishments

You don’t have to list every job you’ve ever held. Focus on the work experience that’s relevant to the position you’re applying for and clearly demonstrates transferable skills.

You might also decide to add a section to your resume that lists specialised skills or technical abilities. For example, you might include your skills with particular computer systems and applications, frameworks, languages, or lab work.

The first rule is to give your resume an effective structure. In other words, you need to put the right information in the right order. Here’s how you can do that:

Organise your resume sections in a logical order. For example, you might start with your contact information and personal statement before diving into the details of your education, work experience, and then work samples.

List your employment history in reverse chronological order. Reverse chronological order means that your most recent experience should appear first, and your least recent experience should appear last.
Keep the most relevant, impressive, or important information at the top. As a general rule of thumb, try to put your most relevant or impressive information at the top of your resume or the beginning of a relevant section.

The second rule is to make your resume easy for employers to scan and find information quickly. If an employer only has six seconds to review your resume, then you want to help them quickly find the qualifications they seek. Here’s what you can do:

• Use section titles. Make sure that each section on your resume has a clear title that tells the employer what information is listed there.
• Use bullet points. Bullet points are a great way to organize information and make it easy to read. For example, try using bullet points to list your job responsibilities, accomplishments, or skills.
• Use white space and line breaks. Pay attention to your resume’s white space and line breaks. If there’s too much white space, it may look like you ran out of things to say. If there aren’t enough line breaks, it may be difficult to process information. Be intentional about when and where you use white space and line breaks.
• Use text emphasis. You might emphasise section titles or draw an employer’s eye to other key information using bolding, upper case, underlining, or italics.
• Use font size. Finally, you might also use a larger font size to emphasise section titles or critical information.

Tip! Make your name and contact information stand out from the rest of your resume.

Start each bullet point or sentence on your resume with an action verb in the past tense. For example:

• Instead of saying, “I lead orientations with new students,” you might say, “Led new student orientations.”
• Or, instead of saying, “Responsible for conducting product walk-through webinars,” you might say, “Presented product walk-through webinars.”

Tip! Use a variety of different action verbs, such as produced, coordinated, managed, analysed, and developed. Avoid repeating the same action verb multiple times.

The fourth rule is to omit unnecessary words or information. Keep your resume punchy and get to the point. You can do this by following these tips:

• Use sentence fragments instead of complete sentences.
• Don’t use the first person: “I.”
• Eliminate unnecessary words such as “a” and “the.”
• Omit details that aren’t directly relevant to the skills, qualifications, and needs of the job you’re applying for.

It’s also important to check your resume for consistency in your formatting and punctuation. For example:

• If you put a period at the end of one bullet point, then you should add a period to the end of every bullet point.
• If you capitalise one section title, then you should capitalise all section titles.
• Make sure your spacing and margins are consistent.

Before you even begin writing your cover letter, start by finding your focus. Ask yourself, “What are the top three selling points I want an employer to take away?”

While you may have more than three reasons that you believe you’re the best candidate for the job, less is often more on your cover letter. There’s limited real estate. So, it’s better to make three, well-developed, and memorable arguments than it is to make a dozen weak and forgettable claims.

At the top of your cover letter, you’ll need to add your name and contact information before writing a salutation. Depending on the position and industry, you may need to use a business letter format to present this information

It’s always ideal to address your cover letter to the person who will be reviewing applications, directly. Look online to see if you can find the hiring manager’s name, and write, “Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms. [insert name].”

However, if you can’t find a name, you could use another appropriate cover letter salutation such as:

• To the [insert department name] Hiring Manager
• To the [insert department name] Hiring Team
• Greetings

The first paragraph of your cover letter is your introduction or hook. It’s the first thing an employer will read—and it can quickly set the right or wrong expectations for everything that follows. Your goal is to catch an employer’s attention—and convince them to keep reading.

Leading your cover letter with a canned or generic expression of interest will likely come across as dull, ordinary, or uninspired. Instead, try leading with an accomplishment, a personal story, your unique skills, or an explanation of where your connection to the employer’s industry or brand started. You might even find a way to inject humour to show a bit of your personality.

The introduction can be anything that introduces yourself and states your interest in the position in an engaging but relevant way.

After introducing yourself, you’ll want to transition quickly to the body of your cover letter. That is where you’ll make your value proposition, which covers the unique skills and values you can bring to the job.

Highlight the top three selling points you’ve identified in the first step. Here are a few tips to make your value proposition more compelling:

• Show—don’t tell. Explain how specific accomplishments or work experiences match the job requirements. Avoid making generic claims, such as, “I’m a hard worker.” or “I have a proven track record.” Instead, give specific or measurable examples.
• Draw your employer’s eye. Consider using bullet points and bolding to separate each selling point and draw an employer’s attention. This portion of your cover letter is the most important, so make it stand out or easy to find.
• Use simple and straightforward language. Include keywords from the job posting requirements to help employers easily see how your experience or skills apply to the role. Also, avoid using jargon or empty adjectives.

Your first paragraph is your introduction, your second (and maybe third) paragraph is your body—and now, your last paragraph is your conclusion. In the conclusion of the cover letter, provide a summary and call to action.

Summarise and reinforce why you’re a good match for the role and what unique skills or values you have to offer the team. End your conclusion by thanking the employer for their consideration, and making a clear request or call to action. For example, you might ask to continue the conversation over a phone call, interview, or a cup of coffee.

Finally, end your cover letter with a closing and signature. Appropriate closings for a cover letter might include:

• Sincerely
• Best/kind wishes
• Best/kind regards
• Thank you
• Looking forward to hearing from you

You should have already studied the job description and researched the company when you wrote your resume and completed the job application.

However, since then, time has passed. So, it’s worthwhile reviewing your notes again. Make sure that you have a fresh and thorough understanding of:

• The company’s mission, values, and business products or services
• Who key members on the team are and what they do
• The job description and responsibilities
• The job qualifications

Also, review your resume one more time. It’s easy to forget the details—especially if you have a lot of experience or lengthy employment history.

The second step to prepare for a job interview is to know your “why.” Almost every interviewer will ask you some version of the following questions:

• Why do you want to work here?
• What interests you about this specific role or company?
• Why are you leaving your current position?

Be prepared to articulate your motivations succinctly. Always have an answer for why you want the role, why you’re connected to the company, and why you’re leaving your current role and organisation.

Tip: Always speak positively. Never bash or otherwise speak negatively about your former team, boss, or company. For example, even if you’re quitting your job because your boss is a micromanager, you should never reveal that in the interview. Instead, you might say, “I’m interested in taking on a role with more responsibility and ownership.”

There’s no way to know the exact questions you’ll be asked—or precisely what you’re going to say—in a job interview. That’s why one of the best ways to prepare is to create a “story bank.” Here’s what we mean by that.

Reflect on your recent work experiences, projects, and accomplishments. What stands out? What situations or stories are most memorable or compelling to you?

Jot these ideas down or mentally tuck them away in your “story bank,” which you can draw from later when you need to give specific examples or reinforce your message during the job interview. The items in your “story bank” might come from:

• Work accomplishments, projects, or activities
• Moments when you overcame a conflict, problem, or difficult situation at work
• Volunteer work or internship experiences
• Ideas you contributed at work
• Your experience leading or helping others at work

When you’ve prepared a story bank, you won’t feel the need to memorise interview responses. Instead, you can feel confident that you have specific examples of your achievements and work experiences at the ready, which you can adapt to fit whatever question may come your way.

Finally, the last way to prepare for a job interview is to rehearse common interview questions.

Again, this isn’t about trying to memorise potential interview responses in advance. Instead, it’s about getting comfortable with talking about your experiences and drawing from your “story bank” on the spot.

Try practicing with a friend, or speaking aloud if practicing by yourself. You might even take notes when questions solicit new insights or remind you of different work projects, situations, and experiences.