Honor Society April Leadership Presentation

LEADERSHIP, VALUES AND BENEFITS PROGRAM
Cover Letters
&
Recommendation Letters
April 2017

Today’s Agenda
• President’s Welcome
• Executive Board Updates
• Core Value of the Month
• March LVBP Topic: Cover Letters  
& Recommendation Letters
• Announcements

WelcomeApril 2017 Chapter Meeting

Updates from the
Executive Board
Leadership,Values & Beneﬁts Program April 2017

CoreValue of the Month
Be Bold, Creative and Open Minded
Go after opportunities. Be bold. To make an impact in today's world, you have to be
able to put yourself out there. Creativity is at an all time high, and being open minded
is essential to this, as shared creativity and embracing others’ opinions can lead to the
formation of great ideas.
Watch the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=vuItShgNElw&feature=youtu.be

Be Bold, Creative
and Open Minded
• How have you recently put yourself out there?
How did it feel?
• When are you most creative?
• Share how a time you were open minded
about someone’s ideas turned out to be very
beneﬁcial

Cover Letters
Your cover letter is more powerful than you might think…
During your job search, you should never underestimate the
power of a cover letter. Your cover letter can be the deciding
factor in getting you the interview over someone who has
essentially the same resume and work experience as you.
Hiring managers do take the time to open your cover letter. If they
see that someone does not take the cover letter seriously or that
they’ve copy pasted it from another job that they have also
applied to, it’s an automatic no, regardless of past experience.

Keys to a great cover letter
•Keep it concise
•Tell a story
•Don’t use the same cover letter for
every application
•Don’t write out your resume in
paragraph form
•Share why you’re excited about the
opportunity
•Don’t sell yourself short

Keep it concise
Keeping a cover letter short and concise is sometimes harder than it sounds.
Keep your cover letter to one page. This makes sure that even if the reader is skimming
it, they will get the main idea right away.
It’s important that you have someone read over and edit your cover letter because they
will be able to help you decide where to cut something out or where you can make your
sentences more clear and shorter.

Tell a story
Your cover letter is your chance to let your personality shine through and to tell a story
that relates to the position that you are applying for.
You could share about a time when in class or in an internship you had to overcome
something or how you got assigned a project that let you realize what you are
passionate about.

Don’t use the same cover
letter twice
This one can be tempting, especially when you are applying to many jobs at once. You
might think that substituting a word here and there will customize it enough to work.
Most hiring mangers can see right through this.
Think of your cover letter as you having a one-on-one conversation with someone. Even
if it’s the same topic that you would have with someone else, it’s going to be different
depending on who you are speaking to.

It’s not your resume in
paragraph form
Your cover letter is not a chance for you to write your resume in paragraph form. That’s
what your resume is for.
If a hiring manger is reading your cover letter and it looks just like your resume, they’re
going to move on to the next candidate who is ready to put in the effort to go above and
beyond in their job application.

Share your excitement
While your resume tells a hiring manger why you are qualiﬁed for a position, the cover
letter is your chance to share why you are excited about the opportunity.
Hiring managers want to hire candidates who are excited about not only the job, but
about being with the company long term. They want to see that you are excited about
building a career there.

Don’t sell yourself short
Too many times applicants use their cover letter to apologize for their lack of
experience or expertise or they spend too much time talking about their weaknesses.
Whether this approach is to sound humble or honest, it’s not the time or the place to do
sell yourself short.
This is the place to explain why this job is the one for you regardless of your past
experience.

Recommendation Letters
How to ask for a recommendation letter for a job or graduate school
application:
If you have started the application process for graduate school, then you already know
the importance of lining up your three recommendation letters.
Even if you aren’t applying to graduate school and instead are applying for full time jobs,
you will see that you need to line up your references as well.
These tips work for both situations and will ensure that you are asking for
recommendation letters in a professional, polite, and successful manner.

Keys to asking for a
recommendation letter
• Ask someone who knows you
• Be mindful of the timing
• Let them know your goals
• Give them a copy of your resume
• Say thank you

Ask someone who knows you
When it comes to choosing who you are going to ask for a recommendation letter from,
make sure that you ask a professor, mentor or manager who actually does know you
and how you work.
Ask the professor whose ofﬁce hours you attended or whose class you raised your hand
in and participated frequently in. Even if you didn’t get an A in the course, they will still
be able to write you a quality letter because they have gotten to know you.
What you don’t want to do is ask a professor in your 150 student lecture who might not
even know your name. The people who read recommendation letters read hundreds of
them and they can tell the difference between a letter written by someone who knows
the student and someone who is writing a generic letter that could work for just about
anyone.

Be mindful of the timing
It is important that you are respectful of the time of the person you are asking to write
your letter.
Make sure that you ask well in advance so that they know that they have an upcoming
deadline and can plan their schedule accordingly.
What you don’t want is to make them feel rushed to meet the deadline and they feel
stressed or aren’t able to provide a high quality letter.
Ask if they would be willing to write the letter about two months in advance. About four
weeks before the deadline, follow up with them letting them know that the deadline is
four weeks away.

Let them know your goals
In order for someone to write you a great recommendation letter, it is important that
you let them know why you are applying for something.
Let them see your passion in this next academic or professional move so that they can
see the importance of you being accepted.
The more details you give, the more speciﬁc and compelling your recommendation
letter will be.

Give them a copy of
your resume
If you are asking a teacher to write you a recommendation letter, they may know what
you have ben up to in the classroom, but not outside of the classroom.
By taking a look at your resume, they will be able to get a holistic view on how you
spend your time and your experiences.

Say thank you
Don’t forget to say thank you and send a handwritten thank you note.
They have taken the time out of their schedule to help advance your education and
career, so make sure that you let them know how much they appreciate it.

Chapter Announcements

Honor Society April Leadership Presentation

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