Cover Letters and Resume's

There has always been a lot of discussion around cover letters and resume's. What is the best format, chronological or functional, what should be included in your cover letter, what cover letters work or don't work? The list goes on. The experts all have their opinions, yet you still haven't found that next job or worse you haven't even gotten a call or inquiry. Trust me, it's not totally your fault. With recruiters and HR professionals receiving over 100 candidates per job posting it is hard to make an impression, but it is still possible. Here are a few tips that you may want to try.

If you think you are being eliminated because of your age, which by the way is discriminatory, there are few different ways of handling this. You can be right up front about it. Most hiring managers can calculate your age by looking at when you graduated or by how many jobs you've had and total number of years worked. The problem is sometimes they overestimate your work experience and therefore your age. Add your age to your resume or cover letter, or better yet add a picture, especially if you look younger than you really are. This eliminates the hiring manager guessing your age, and by being upfront you can be a little clever with it as well. In your cover letter, you can state that you are 53 years young or that you have the mind of a 40 year old. Not only do you get this out in the open, but you can have fun with it and differentiate yourself from other candidates. Remember the hiring manager is a person and may even have a personality.

Try responding to job advertisements without including a cover letter. Sometimes what topic you open your cover letter or email introduction with immediately excludes you. Not including a cover letter will force the hiring manager to at least open your resume. This will allow your experience to speak for you instead of trying to wow them with a cover letter that may be completely off base.

When responding from your own email address/account, under your signature make sure you include any of your social networking websites. My standard signature now includes links to my facebook, LinkedIn, Yasni, Peekyou, Twitter and my two blogs. People are naturally drawn to these social network sites and usually click on at least one link. This is another place for hiring managers to see exactly who you are. One point of caution before you take this approach is to make sure the material on these sites is appropriate. The last thing you want is a potential employer seeing something on your facebook site that might disagree with his or his company's philosophy.

David Goldenberg