Weekly Poll: Are cover letters necessary?

Having a solid resume will help you land interviews, but are cover letters just a waste of time these days? Maybe cover letters can actually make you stand out as a job applicant? What do you think?

Vote below!

College grads sharing job search advice

Recent grads offer helpful tips

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As the familiar strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” play at colleges and universities across the state, some students feel ready to take on their futures, while others wonder what’s next.

But Boston University assistant professor Scott Seider said for recent graduates in flux, especially aspiring educators, the most important thing is “not to panic.”

“This current economic situation and the job market for educators has been pushed back,” the School of Education assistant professor said, “because communities are waiting longer to finalize budgets.”

If there is a job, he said, it’s going to come a little bit later than they are hoping for.

Recent BU graduate Kelly Proulx is fortunate to have already scored a job as program coordinator for the Office of Student Services at BU’s School of Education.

Though she credits fate for getting her job there, she spent much of her time at BU working with college students as a transitional mentor and orientation adviser.

“When I applied for this job, I was also looking for teaching jobs,” Proulx said, “but I just hadn’t heard anything on that front.”

So when the opportunity to work at BU appeared, she scooped it up. Still, she admits that many of her peers aren’t as lucky.

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You Can Build Credit on an Entry-Level Income

Credit-building tips for new graduates

This guest post was written by Go Banking Rates, bringing you informative personal finance content and helpful tools, as well as the best interest rates on financial services nationwide.

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If you are a recent college grad, you're probably sick of hearing about how important it is to start building good credit. You know you need a decent credit history so you can one day buy a house, get a new car and obtain the lowest credit card rates. Unfortunately, you don't know how to get that good credit in the first place.

After all, you're just starting out in the job market. Even if you were lucky enough to graduate without much student loan debt, you're probably not earning the most impressive salary (yet). How are you supposed to establish your credit when you certainly aren't ready to take out a mortgage loan and you are perfectly happy with the used car you're driving around now?

Don't worry! Building credit doesn't require you to pull in a substantial income to fund giant loan payments. There are a couple of easy and budget-friendly ways to get your credit going and prepare your finances for the future without taking on much debt.

Option #1: Become an Authorized User

A lot of people are told to go out and get a credit card when they need to build credit. Just charge a small amount every month and then pay it back on time. Simple, right?

Well, it would be if anyone would actually issue you a card to begin with. This frustrating vicious circle of needing a credit card to get credit, but needing credit to get a card is often overlooked as the first hurdle young adults face when attempting to establish a credit history.

That's why you should be added as an authorized user on another person's credit card if you can. Authorized users don't actually have to use the card at all, though they can, but automatically share the credit rating of the cardholder. If the cardholder has great credit, congratulations. You do, too.

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The Purpose of a Resume - for recent grads

Unique resume advice

Reprinted with permission from http://theessayexpert.com/

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A common misconception about resumes is that they are meant to describe what you did in your past jobs. In actuality, resumes are most effective when they are written from a FUTURE perspective. In other words, your resume will work if you think about what a potential employer would want to know about how you WILL perform. What experience do you have that will make you a contribution to their firm or organization?

If you are writing from the perspective of the FUTURE, here’s what will happen:

1. You will write detailed bullets that demonstrate your capability to achieve measurable results. That means: include numbers as often as possible. Don’t just say you tutored students; say how many and by how much their grades improved. Don’t say you were successful; tell us exactly what results you achieved. Don’t just say “increased;” tell us by what percentage. Your readers will imply that you can produce similar results for them

2. You will think about the purpose and priority of each item on your resume. Does it matter that you worked as a bartender? Maybe, if you worked 20 hours/week and still maintained a 3.8 GPA, or if you were the highest-tipped bartender at the establishment. Additionally, bartending successfully shows your ability to multitask and interact with a wide variety of people. But it does not need to take up three lines on your resume, just because it’s what you did; you can make it a short bullet under your “Education” section to show you were doing it while in school full time.

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3. You will delete anything that is irrelevant or of minimal importance to your future. These things include stuff you did in high school. High school activities are no longer relevant – you had 4 years of college to become who you are now, and if you did less in college than you did in high school, looking into the future, the logical conclusion is that you will do less and less as time goes on.

Was this article useful to you? If so, subscribe to the free New Grad Life Newsletter to get more great articles!


About the author:

Brenda Bernstein is the Founder and Senior Editor at TheEssayExpert.com. She holds B.A. in English from Yale and a J.D. from New York University School of Law, and has been coaching individuals and companies on their writing projects for over 10 years. The Essay Expert provides assistance with college essays, LinkedIn profiles, resumes, cover letters, web copy, business writing, and custom writing projects

Financial Advice from a Fellow College Grad

Financial tips you should know

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This year, I let myself off easy. I resolved to find the newly minted college graduate who knows more about money than any other 22-year-old in the country and let that person dispense the week’s wisdom.

Alas, there is no N.C.A.A. tournament bestowing blue ribbons for financial competence. And even the GMAT exam for business school applicants does not measure its takers’ skills in balancing checkbooks or deciphering the company benefits pamphlet.

So instead I came here, to Texas Tech University, home to what is arguably the best undergraduate financial planning program in the country. And I spent hours picking the brain of Madison Nipp, who graduated earlier this month with the highest grade point average of anyone in the major.

As I previewed this exercise for friends and colleagues, most of them expressed surprise (often pleasant) that it was a woman who took the crown. But Deena B. Katz, an associate professor in the Texas Tech program, said it made sense to her. “Women have better communication skills. And financial planning is about people more than portfolios.”

Ms. Nipp, who looks and dresses her age but has the soft-spoken competence of someone much older, will begin counseling people on their portfolios for the financial services giant USAA early next month. Here is a preview of what she may tell them, drawing, in part, on personal experience. Plenty of the advice, it turns out, is useful for people far older than new college graduates.

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Weekly Poll: When was your last job interview?

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When was your last job interview?

Comment Question: Did you do a 2nd or 3rd round interview as well? What was your experience like? Comment below!

5 Ways to Get a Job on Craigslist

Yes, you can find real jobs on Craigslist

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Looking for a job? Thanks for reading this article and I hope you will enjoy the tips we provide here.

In many cases, when I receive resumes I send them directly to the folder with deleted documents, because people make some basic mistakes. I don't enjoy doing that, so here are some tips on what to do when you send a resume to a company.

If you want companies to be interested in hiring you, you first need to know what a company owner faces.
While the hiring process is the most important thing I'll do today, I also have dozens of others things to do during the same day. When we use Craiglist to find someone new to hire, we usually get over a hundred replies in the first two days. Since there are so many, my inbox is flooded, so I move them into a separate folder to deal with them when I have the time - at the same time I receive calls, I need to meet deadlines, answer questions from employees and a lot more.

 If you want to stand out and have a better chance at getting the job, here are some of the things you can do:

  1. Make sure the cover letter addresses our needs

 Since I get so many emails, I don't have the time to analyze each one closely. I glance at them and decide quickly if I'm going to call you for an interview. A lot of resumes don't even get read, since the cover letter makes me delete it. If you're looking for a job, you need to invest the time in your cover letter.

 Writing a good cover letter is pretty simple actually. All you need to do is read the post we made and let us know how you can fill our needs. When possible, use examples. Usually, when we post an ad, we get around 5% great cover letters and the other 95% are pretty much the same, boring and time wasters.

If the cover letter answers the needs we posted in the ad, there is a much better chance at getting a call back. I'll say it again. The cover letter needs to answer the needs we have and posted in the ad. Using a cover letter from a site or just copying from a book will not work. Adapt it to the job you're replying to. Consider how many replies I have to read. If you're wasting my time, I will probably skip the resume all together and go to the next one.

  2. Don't over do it. 

Be super clear and concise. Use the same language to describe your achievements to me, as you would to your grandmother. For example...

Be concise and very clear all the time. The language you should be using to tell me what achievements you have, should be the same as the one you would use to explain it to your grandma.

"The jobs I had so far, together with the business administration education that I got, gave me a great sense of negotiation and communication, plus analytical skills"

 This one is boring. It doesn't tell me anything really.

"I only had one job so far. I worked for Larry's Video Store, in the vicinity of my college. Because a lot of customers were choosing Netflix instead of us, I talked with the boss and convinced him to offer people the option of a subscription. I created a business model and showed the boss what our projected sales were. He said OK and allowed me to take care of implementing it. I used posters and flyers to spread the word about the new option. It was a great success and the boss was very appreciative"

 Make sure you tell the facts in a concise and clear manner. Don't fluff the resume with pointless words. Tell the recruiter who you are and what you can do. Sell yourself in a way that people will react to.

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