Resume Assignment Specifics
Due Date: February 15
- Biographical
information. Complete the
table you drafted earlier.
Although you do not need to include every scrap of biographical
information, you must include those experiences you use in your resume or
letter. I would expect to see
complete education data, including dates, degrees or expected date of
conferral, GPAs, honors, courses, academic interests. I expect to see employment histories with rich explanations of
responsibilities, duties, leadership, and comments.
- Print-out
of job description. Do not
paraphrase or make up a description. The description must be “real.”
- Printed resume. This is the one you design carefully,
applying all of your Williams knowledge yet attending to genre
expectations. I’ll be looking for
a match between content and arrangement of your material and the job description.
A resume of high excellence will demonstrate some of the creativity
described by Munschauer in shaping your material to fit the job.
- Cover
letter. Use the real address
provided on your job description. Attend to design principles and genre constraints. That is, the letter of application is a
conservative document, not an opportunity to demonstrate design
innovation; nevertheless, you’ll apply the principles of good design. Follow the general format suggested by
Munschauer on p. 310 and by the Anderson handouts. Grammar and style are all important
here; attend to them carefully.
- ASCII
resume. The ASCII resume has
NO formatting features because it travels from you to your prospective
employer via email. Although some email clients do format text, you have
no idea what sort of client the recipient uses. In addition, your prospective employer may scan your ASCII
resume. Consequently you have a
more limited range of design tools available to you: spaces between lines, caps, flush left
alignment, dashes (in lieu of bullets).
Make good use of these elements.
Email your ASCII resume to me for review before you turn it in;
I’ll tell you what I see at my end.
Then email it to yourself and print it out for credit.
- Memo. Bundle your materials and present
them to me with a concise memo describing a) what I’m about to see (the
five pieces) and b) several key decisions you made when
organizing resume material and composing the middle (or middle two)
paragraphs of your letter—the Nancy Jones moves.