And would 3 paragraphs be too long on a cover letter? Mine is currently 3 short paragraphs (4-5 sentences each) and its broken down by: -What I want to get into and why -My work experience -My Education Question 1) Please let me know if the above is fine, and if I should be placing my gaps in employment in the second paragraph with the work experience. (left on my own accord for both gaps, took time off to study/travel) Question 2) Alot of postings state to send Res and Cover but if it doesnt say cover, should we send something anyways? Maybe something shorter like 2 paragraphs?
There is no reason why you should be discussing gaps in your resume in a cover letter. You should not be walking through all jobs that you have had. Only discuss the ones that are relavent to the position you are applying for and those which you feel will give you a better chance of getting the job…like management skills, building models, etc. Giving a chronology of work experience is why we have the resume. As for the gaps in the resume, depending on how large they are, I found that only stating the year (not month and year) ranges you worked at a company to save lots of anxiety and explaining. I have seen several other resumes like that as well. The only time you will have to discuss a gap is if you are currently unemployed and they want to know about the current gap and why you are unemployed. If they want to know the months of prior jobs during the interview, which a small percentage of interviewers will, then you discuss the gaps at that point. Otherwise there is no point in starting off the application process with a negative. If you get lucky enough to get an offer and need to fill out job history, you use months and years.
I don’t think 3 paragraphs is too long, though it depends on how long the paragraphs are too. I think your education statement should be one sentence long, unless you have little work experience and something during your education can be considered useful for demonstrating talent you bring. In work experience, make sure to include any recognizable firm names you’ve been associated with (assuming they benefit your case). Then list your work accomplishments as bullet points, maybe some format like STATE TALENT: EXAMPLE FROM A WORK EXPERIENCE. The eyes will naturally gravitate to the bullet points, and those are basically your big selling points. The cover letter should call attention to the relevant parts of your resume that a first-time reader of your resume might miss or fail to appreciate as relevant to the job. So in fact, you don’t need 10 different resumes, just rearrange the bullet points on your cover letters.
Awesome guys, thanks for your input. I will be doing some adjustments tomorrow for sure.