Hello my lovely Escape Artists! I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately about resumes and cover letters — how they are similar to and different from CVs.
One of the biggest differences is that CVs are essentially in shorthand, because everyone reading them understands the context in which everything in them takes place. They understand what teaching a class entails, whether it’s a large lecture course or a small discussion course. They know what an admissions committee does. They know what a conference presentation requires. You don’t have to explain what you did, because they can infer all of that. All you have to do is tell them what you did.
Outside of academia, outside of a very few careers that function very much like academia, however, you can’t use shorthand. No one can. Jobs are too different across companies, they’re too complicated, and they change too much. Instead, both the resume and the cover letter are essentially marketing documents. They’re making an argument for why you have the skills and experience to do this job, and they do so by highlighting not what you were responsible for, but what you accomplished.
If you haven’t yet heard of Alison Green, of AskAManager.com, I highly recommend you start following her. First, she’s awesome. Second, her blog is a treasure trove of how to navigate the professional world. And finally, she has some excellent and concrete advice on how to write fabulous resumes and cover letters. I ran across this post today and I couldn’t resist sharing it with you — and she uses Game of Thrones as her fictional example office besides.
And, if you want a laugh, you can read this post about all the ways people have done applications very, very wrong and pat yourself on the back because no matter what, you have always known enough to never list “Pirate” as a language on your resume. (Seriously.)