In the blink of an eye, 13 weeks have passed. I have learnt many practical lessons from this course, and the area that I feel that I have benefitted the most from will definitely be that of resume/cover letter writing.
As a final year undergrad, I'm the most interested in this area because I will need to find a job soon, and these skills have proven to be very useful. Even those who are not in their final year yet would find it useful to clinch their dream internship! In this course, our resume and cover letter have been read and edited by both our peers and tutor. Although NUS career centre has career advisors in each department to help us to look through our resumes as well, I feel that what we get in ES2007S is much more detailed.
One important takeaway is that resumes should be concise and succinct. The Human Resource (HR) department receives many resumes and may take only a few seconds viewing each resume. Hence, we should bring our main points across quickly. It is also important to remember that each company looks for different values and we should tailor our resumes to suit the needs of the company. Additionally, I've always thought that cover letters are redundant as all the information that we want to convey to the companies have already been written in the resumes. However, I have learnt that cover letters is another avenue for us to sell ourselves to the companies and also supplement them with more details for the information that we have written in the resume. Cover letters should also be tailored to address the needs of each company.
All in all, it has been a very fun 13 weeks taking this module and I have certainly learnt more than I thought I would. To quote my friend, "I've never heard you saying that a lesson is fun." I'm glad to have taken this very useful module in my final semester! (:
Hi Samantha!
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad we decided to take this module! :)
It has been a fun course to be in, and i've learnt alot as well, from all the peers as well as from Brad.
With a better undersstanding of how to craft your resume and cover letter, I hope that it will lay a good foundation for your job search! :)
All the best for the upcoming final exams, and for your future job! :)
Bao Wen
Thank you, Samantha, for making this clear and concise final post. I like the way you focus specifically on the position search, summarizing the value of the resume and the cover letter tasks. You accurately describe those documents making an interesting comparison between the career centre's approach and the one adopted in ES2007S. Of course, I'm ever curious and would like to know what the difference is as far as the details.
ReplyDeleteAll in all you've done a fine job this term, both individually and as a team member. At times I've wished you had been a bit more willing to share your opinions because when you have done so it's been a delight to hear what you have to say. However, I realize that such expectations may be contrary to what students are expected to do in the vast majority of their other modules. The working world is, of course, generally more demanding.
In any case, I appreciate your effort, Samantha. Best wishes as you continue your learning!
Hi Samantha,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thanks for being a really nice person to work with, the research group was really cohesive with all of us being so non combative :).
As for your points, on the resume writing, I agree completely. Being a graduating student myself, I found the reinforcement of concepts for resume and cover letter writing exceedingly useful. Taking NCC1001 and this module concurrently allowed me to refine my resume critically. I agree with your point about resumes being concise, I was criticised initially for having a very lengthy resume, but now I know better.
Likewise, I hope you are crafting excellent resumes after this course.
Good luck with your job hunt!
Cheers,
Chris