This presentation is designed to be given in a series of lectures to undergraduate students. Yet, it is a very practical guide to career development, resume and cover letter writing and networking for finding better jobs.

1. BUILDING CAREERS
AND APPLYING FOR
JOBS
Abdulla Aziz
Abdulla.aziz@ue.edu.au

2. Section objectives
After finishing this session, you will
■ Understand networking and its importance
■ Get familiar with resume writing process
■ Identify the common mistakes you should avoid in your
resume
■ Understand who to target in your resumes and cover letters
■ Gain practical information about cover letters
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3. First things in career building
■ Get organized. Keep all the details and make sure it is easily
accessible, so that you don’t miss opportunities or make
mistakes
■ Start now and stick to it. Even if you are a year or more away
from graduation, now
is not too early to get started with some of the essential
research and planning tasks.
■ Networking and a working CV are good places to start from
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4. Networking
■ Networking is the process of making informal connections with
mutually beneficial business contacts
■ Networking etiquette
– Remember that networking is about people helping each other, not
just about other people helping you
– Try to learn something about the people you want to connect with
– Don’t overwhelm others with too many messages or requests,
– Be brief in all your communication efforts,
– Don’t give out other people’s names and contact information without
their permission
– Never email your résumé to complete strangers
– Remember to say thank you every time someone helps you
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5. Networking tools
■ Social media (Linkedin, Facebook,Twitter…)
■ Your classmates
■ identifying people with similar interests in your target professions,
industries, and companies
■ Reading news sites, blogs, and other online sources, following industry
leaders
■ Following individual executives at your target companies
■ Visiting trade shows to learn about various industries and rub shoulders
with people who work in those industries
■ Volunteering and internships
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6. Linkedin
■ Probably the best known business networking channel with around 500
million users
■ In class activity: let us create Linkedin profiles and add each other
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7. Common mistakes you should avoid in your
career search
■ Not catching mistakes in your resume,
■ Misspelling the name of a manager (means no dear
sir/madam anymore) you’re writing to
■ Showing up late for an interview
■ Leaving embarrassing images or messages open to
public view on your social media accounts
■ Failing to complete application forms correctly
■ Asking for information that you can easily find online
■ Making any other error that could flag you as
someone who is careless, clueless, or disrespectful.
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8. Resume writing
■ Why do you write a resume?
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9. Resume writing
■ you will create many messages during your career search,
your resume will be among the most important ones
■ Writing a resume is one of those projects that really benefits
from multiple planning, writing, and completing sessions
spread out over several days or weeks.
■ You are trying to summarize a complex subject (yourself!) and
present a compelling story to complete strangers in a brief
document
■ The objective of a resume is to get an interview not
necessarily a job
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10. Resume writing process
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11. Target your specific audience
■ Like other business messages, resumes
are written for specific audiences
■ Take the effort to learn about your
audiences and tailor your resume to
catch their attention
■ You can do that through the job ads,
phone calls, social media accounts of the
hiring team and etc.
■ After all the purpose of a resume is
creating interest
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12. Build your resume around your strengths
■ Show that your are the best fit to the job opening
■ What if you have weaknesses?
■ In class activity: suppose that you are an employment agent and your
candidates suffer from the following weaknesses? Suggest what they should
do
– Alan has a record of frequent job changes.The jobs are quite similar though
– Andi has a 6 month gap in his employment history where he took the time
to recover from a serious illness
– Sana who is a UKH and LBS alumna (Bsc Accounting and MBA ) with 5
years of relevant experience is seemingly overqualified for a junior
accountant at Xal co.Yet she very much would like to apply for the job,
because her dear friend is working there too.
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13. Organization of your resume
■ Three common organization types:
– Chronological resume
– Functional resume
– The combination resume
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14. Chronological resumes
■ In a chronological resume, the work experience section
dominates and is placed immediately after your contact
information and introductory statement.
■ The chronological approach is the most common way to
organize a resume
■ Many employers prefer this format because it presents your
professional history in a clear, easy-to-follow arrangement
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15. The chronological resume
■ List your job experiences in a reverse order, giving more
importance to the most recent one
■ Specify your title, the organization, important dates, the
tasks you performed as a part of your job
■ Show your achievements as a part of every job you have done
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16. The functional resume
■ A functional resume, sometimes called a skills resume, emphasizes
your skills and capabilities, identifying employers and academic
experience in subordinate sections.
■ This arrangement stresses individual areas of competence rather
than job history.
■ The functional approach has three advantages:
– (1)Without having to read through job descriptions, employers can
see what you can do for them,
– (2) you can emphasize earlier job experience,
– (3) you can deemphasize any lengthy unemployment or lack of
career progress.
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17. The functional resume
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18. The combination resume
■ A combination resume meshes the skills focus of the
functional format with the job history focus of the
chronological format
■ The chief advantage of this format is that it allows you to
focus attention on your capabilities when you don’t have a
long or steady employment history, without raising concerns
that you might be hiding something about your past.
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19. The combination resume
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20. Writing a cover letter
■ A cover letter is a single-page letter that should be part of any job
application, unless the job ad clearly says otherwise
■ “If your cover letter doesn’t impress, I won’t even look at your resume”
says Lauren Nelson; Marketing Manager at crowdSPRING
■ Purposes of a cover letter
– Introduce you
– Mention the job (or kind of job) you're applying for (or looking for)
– Match your KSA’s with the KSA’s required by the job
– Encourage the reader to read your resume
– Finish with a call to action (e.g., requesting an interview or asking to
meet)
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21. Customize your cover letter
1. Find out about who you are writing to: If not specified in the ad, call
the employer or recruitment agency (don't email them) and ask who to
send the application to
2. Find out about the job: questions you can ask (same phone call):
■ What can you tell me about the job?
■ What can you tell me about the ideal candidate for the job?
■ Is there a position description I can look at? (if not included in the ad)
3. Find out more about the company
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22. Traditional cover letter
■ Put your basic details on the top
■ Next, write the receiver’s own details
■ It is attached with the resume, whether handed, mailed or
emailed
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23. 23

24. Email cover letters
■ Write your name and the job title in the email subject line (e.g., " Aza
Ali- Application forAdministration Assistant role")
■ Remember you still need to use the name of the person you're writing
to
■ Avoid formatting the body of the email like a traditional letter go
straight to the "Dear XXXX" part.
■ End the email with a professional signature that includes your phone
number
■ Always send the email from a professional looking email address
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25. Cover letter tips
Include
■ The name of the job you are
applying for
■ A list of your relevant KSA’s,
you can use the job ad and job
description to choose the list
■ A summary of why you're right
for the job/ position
■ Finish by asking the reader to
look at your resume. Also ask
them to contact you about an
interview
Avoid
■ Typos and factual errors (double
check everything on your cover
letter)
■ Your entire resume (you have
the resume to do that for you)
■ Repetitive statements and
clichés
■ Mentioning your other
applications
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26. Hands-on activity
In groups of 3-4 students:
■ Choose one of the job ads provided
by the lecturer
■ Write a well structured, double
checked one page cover letter as if
you are applying to the job
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27. References used
■ Bovee, C. andThill, J. (2013). Business communication essentials (1st ed.). US: Boston:
Prentice Hall.
■ Freeiworktemplates.com. Retrieved 6 December 2016, from
https://www.freeiworktemplates.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/01/cover_letter_example.png
■ How toWrite a Cover Letter. (2016). Youth Central. Retrieved 6 December 2016, from
http://www.youthcentral.vic.gov.au/jobs-careers/applying-for-jobs/how-to-write-a-
cover-letter
■ Nelson, L. (2014). Why I Care More AboutYour Cover LetterThanYour Resume.
www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 7 December 2016, from
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140921144232-77324480-why-i-care-more-about-
your-cover-letter-than-your-resume?trk=pulse-det-nav_art&trk=pulse-det-nav_art
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