Cover Letter Coup
Someone once told me that writing covers letters is easy. You basically make a template and plug in all the necessary information. Somehow I missed the memo, because writing cover letters takes me an awfully long time.
I'm not sure why it takes me years to write them. Maybe it's because I'm acting like a typical Type A perfectionist, or perhaps it's because I'm applying to a variety of positions that require different skill sets, but writing the cover letter takes a really long time. It's kind of a pain.
Back in November I was really confused about how to even write a cover letter. I asked some of my Career Services friends for help, and they gave me a basic rundown. I like to look at examples though, so my law school friend recommended that I visit the Vermont Law School website for sample cover letters. In all honesty, their Career Services website has been incredibly helpful in crafting my cover letters.
There are so many samples to look at. Some of the examples are geared toward internship applications, but others are for job positions. Law writing is very concise, which is a great style to emulate for a cover letter. I've swiped things like transitional phrases and basic structure from the examples the website provides. Then I just adapt everything to my SA experience. The "company" I research is the college. My skills and research reflect my work in higher education.
I know it's a bit of an unorthodox approach, but it works. If anyone else has cover letter resources that you really like, please let me know!
I provided the link to the examples below. After clicking the "useful downloads" link, simply click "Cover Letter Preparation" for tips about cover letter structure and examples of cover letters.
http://www.vermontlaw.edu/Job_Search_Resources/Useful_Downloads.htm
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P.S. My post is a little early this week because I'm headed up to Portland (Maine) this weekend for my last moments of spring break. Woo hoo! But really, I love Maine.
Tips on the Fly
After the hard drive crashed on the office computer during my first week as an intern, I was moved to a different computer closer to the hallway. This situation actually worked in my favor because I now see a lot of traffic throughout the day, such as the Director of Marketing. She's entered the habit of providing me with nuggets of advice as she rushes past my desk. Here are some of the highlights:
1) Always dress for your next position
2) Make sure your department needs you
3) Don't lose sight of your actual job duties*
*The idea is that once you start to get good at your job, other people will ask you to do things because you're known as the person that "gets stuff done." The problem arises when you start to lose sight of your original duties because you're too busy doing other things. Hence, don't lose sight of your actual job duties!
She also has a tip about "cleaning your pigeon cage," but I'm going to need some more clarification about that one. To be continued!
P.S. I know this entry is short and sweet, but I've been feeling under the weather this past week (and am only now recovering). Best of luck to anyone that participated at TPE!
Top Five Job Hunting/Networking Tips at NASPA
This week's blog will be short as I'm currently on a train to Baltimore for NASPA. As I mentally prepare myself for the overwhelming maniacal whirlwind that is to come, I want to share a top five tips list that I've put together culling from a variety of websites. I hope to knock off as many of these as I can during NASPA and I will expand on them/share my success and failure for next week's blog. So here we go:
5) Use social media to connect with and compliment the speakers (via LinkedIN)
4) Forget just giving out business cards - collect them (via LinkedIN)
3) Ask meaningful questions of the people you meet (via LinkedIN)
2) SMILE (via Bridgewater State University)
1) Establish goals: pursue depth of knowledge, network, or learn something new (via Chronicle of Higher Education)
Here we go!
TPE: Job Hunting Gone Wrong
Conference season commences this week, beginning with NASPA and the "necessary" evil that is TPE. Several of my cohortmates have undergone a process of self-induced panic and anxiety in preparation for TPE: filling out applications, contacting employers, and creating a laundry list of potential interview questions. Where as I? I am doing none of the sort as I have adamantly rejected any persuasion of attending TPE.
Reason being is that I remain a skeptic about the realistic effectiveness of such a chaotic process. The job hunt is competitive as it is, now you want to put me in a room with other candidates and interview competitively like I'm in the Hunger Games? No thanks. My biggest gripe with TPE is that candidates are asked to pay on average about $100ish (depending on if you were on your game and registered early) to participate. I'm sorry, but nothing sounds more ridiculous than asking someone to pay money to find a job.
Yes pragmatists, I understands that there are costs associated with putting on such an event, but why push the cost on the candidates? We grad students are cash-strapped as it is! If anything, it should really be a cost fronted completely by the employers; what a difference that might make in the experience.
My recruiting experience taught me that paying to find a job creates unrealistic expectations and demands from the consumer. You want to get what you pay for, and in this world of employment wheel of fortune, there are no guarantee that you will get a job through TPE. But you're paying for the interview experience...cut the crap, as a grad student you can get that experience for free by visiting your campus career center.
Listen, I am not a complete hater. I think that for some, the experience will pay off. I extend sincere congratulate to them for having the odds be in their favor. For the rest of the poor souls, they are S.O.L. I can think of many more meaningful ways to spend that money instead of paying for interviews, like my rent.
So what's the game plan for me then you ask? I will use my time wisely during the actual NASPA conference to network and connect with professionals, attend receptions, and sit in on business meetings. There's zero certainty that this strategy will be fruitful, but at least I still have $100 in my pocket.
Interview Tips From a High School Principal
One of my courses is "Counseling the College Bound Adult," which is helpful in my work with high school students participating in a dual enrollment program at a community college. Most of the students in my class are in the School of Counseling program, so when the principal of a local high school spoke to our class regarding the interview process, much of his advice was geared toward future guidance counselors.
Despite the fact that I'm interested in a different field, I really liked his tips and found them to be pretty universal in application. Here are some of his finer points:
Do Your Research
Make sure you read up on the school. Know the school's mission. Demonstrate your knowledge by incorporating your research into your cover letter. This will make you stand out from other candidates. You want to prove why you are a good fit.
Have Questions Ready
If you don't have any questions, you may as well walk out of the interview. Make sure you have good questions too. You don't want to ask for a factoid that you can easily find through a quick Google search.
You Better Be a Reader
Don’t stop reading! During interviews the principal asks each candidate what he or she is currently reading. Once he had an otherwise great candidate who really stumbled on this question. Finally she asked if the Bible counted. Of course it counts! He wants to know that you're interested in learning and continuing to learn. Reading is important.
Use a Binder
It's great to bring a binder with supplemental material, but don't pass the binder around the room. The search committee will glance over the pages and not truly absorb the information. Instead use the material in your binder as a reference point. For instance, if the committee asks how you would construct a lesson plan, say, great, let me show you a lesson plan I created...
It's Okay to Have Talking Points
If you're nervous and need talking points to keep you focused, it's okay to have those written down in your binder. It's also okay to have questions written down beforehand. (I always assumed it reflected badly on your preparatory skills if you couldn't memorize your questions or talking points beforehand. Guess I was wrong!)
Know Your Core Values
Know your core values, and don't apologize for it. The principal cited his own interview for a vice principal position at a high school in California. Someone from the search committee demanded to know what he wanted to be when he grew up. The now-principal stood up and said, "I want to run a school in an urban district and implement policies and practices that will help underrepresented populations pursue higher education." BAM. He was hired for the position. The point is that you want to find the right fit, so don't be shy about voicing your values.
Pre-Interview
When scheduling the interview, ask who you are interviewing with. This will prepare you for what to expect during the interview. At the principal's high school, candidates will interview with the search committee, students, and parents. One candidate cried during an interview because he was entirely unaware that he was interviewing students and parents too. (Back when I interviewed for a position in December, I really wished I had asked who I was interviewing with. This would have helped immensely when I wrote my thank-you letters. I had to do some serious investigating to remember who was on the search committee.)
Visit the School
Ask for a visit before the interview. This will give you the opportunity to get a sense of the school's culture and student body. (For us higher ed people, I've always been encouraged to visit the campus before the interview. It's a great time to talk to students about current issues on campus, and then you can later incorporate these conversations during the interview.)
Hope these tips helped! :)
Resume Miranda Rights: Anything (no really, anything) you say can and will be used against you in a job search
For this week's blog post, as I'm still no further with the job hunt, I was thinking about writing a semi-reflectively post about a great InsideHigherEd article I read about treating students as customers. BUT, I just had a major question come up while working on my resume just now that warrants some thought: to what extend could an employer discriminate against me based on what I put on my resume?
A little back story: All throughout my resume, it is evident that I have a lot of experience interacting with the deaf community*. From ASL classes to my thesis topic/an upcoming conference presentation (which studies the college experiences of students who are deaf), it's hard to miss that I have some relationship to the community. Therefore, there is a likelihood than an employer could very well assume that I'm deaf, and just maybe decide to discard me from the pile because of it.
This is controversial to even think, much less say, and I hate to believe this might be the case. Realistically speaking from my previous experience though, I know how much time and energy hiring takes, and I have also witnessed how employers make snap judgments when picking candidates to ensure a hassle-free interview process. Thus, depending on the subjective nature of the employer, including words or phrases in a resume that disclose certain identities might cause them to reconsider a candidate due to bias or prejudice.
Such thoughts give way to a slippery slope known as the political game of social identity. Race, class, gender, sexual orientation, disability, you name it, these identities still suffer at the hand of those who are in positions of power and privilege. Those who are not interested in adjusting their work environment to accommodate individuals who are not like them. While we as practitioners fight the good social justice, fight, we cannot ignore that not all of peers in the field are willing to die on the hill for equity and equality for causes they don't believe in. I recognize such beliefs stemming from the socially constructed perspective of perceived threat and survival - that goes beyond simple explanation here.
So, while I have no answers for how we overcome those people, I just continue to hope that institutional/organizational push for exposure to and appreciation for difference and diversity remains a priority.
I close really by arguing that words matter on the resume that go beyond grammar and syntax (which are important too!), and I wonder what is the right path to take in such a situation when we, plebeians of the student affairs world, are at the mercy of the gatekeepers known as the hiring manager or HR? I suppose that if this reality exists during my interview process, then I'm better off being turned down for jobs, instead of hiding pieces of me that are genuinely important. I embrace my identities, so my employer had better embrace them too.
Perhaps I'm over thinking all of this, but if such thoughts have crossed your mind, please share your story with me!
*My interest started when I moved to northeast 5 years ago, and I noticed people signing everywhere. My interest turned into a hobby and a hobby into a passion, and I have dedicated myself as an advocate for the deaf and hard of hearing community ever since.
Motivation for the Melancholy
I feel like I’m in limbo. This week I didn't find any job listings that fit my criteria, and I haven't heard back from any of the positions I previously applied for. Actually, I did hear back about one job posting. They didn’t select my application for further review. I'm not really surprised because I was a little underqualified. it was a position for a Writing Center Director, and based on the job description the search committee was looking for candidates with a serious background in rhetoric and composition theory. I figured I'd try to swing it anyway, since rhet/comp is something I have studied before and would like to study in the future. Although I'm not exactly surprised that the search committee didn’t select my application, the rejection is still a little disappointing.
I’m also in stasis because there are possible job openings at the institutions I'm currently interning at. The departments are definitely aware that I'm interested, but there's nothing I can do to take more action. I have to wait for search committees to convene, job positions to post online, and so on and so forth. It’s hard to sit back and wait!
I keep reminding myself that the hiring cycle for higher ed doesn't really happen until the summer. Also, I should relax. Also, I need to stop being such a whiner.
Here's an inspirational quote, courtesy of my bffl Pinterest, that's encouraging me to keep plugging away:
