Phil Druker, Department of English/University of Idaho

 MEMORANDUM

TO:                 Students of English 317

FROM:           Phil Druker, Instructor

DATE:           

SUBJECT:      Assignment: Cover Letter For Your Résumé, Résumé, and Thank-you Letter

 I. Cover Letter

 Please prepare a cover letter for your resume.  It will be due                     .  Please have a rough draft of this letter ready on                   .

In the near future, many of you will need to apply for a job with a cover letter and your resume.  A cover letter for your resume asks a potential employer for an interview that will help you get a job, and it shows the employer how well you can communicate in writing.  While your resume is extremely important, your cover letter may be even more important as it introduces you to a potential employer.  Thus, it needs to be perfect in content, organization, style, and format.

This assignment will only work if you write a letter that is real, that has practical value for you.  Thus, you need to write a letter for a real position that you are applying for or that you might apply for.  Check with the Career Services Center, the Office of Cooperative Education (Commons, 3^rd floor), professional journals in your field, or various Web sites for job advertisements.  Responding to an actual job advertise­ment for either a permanent position or an internship will be necessary because job advertisements for those positions contain key words that you need to use in your cover letter.   Therefore please, enclose a copy of the job vacancy announcement with your cover letter so I can see how you are responding to it.

Remember, your cover letter should do more than merely summarize your résumé.

Note: we will write an application letter (rather than a “prospecting” letter).

II. Résumé

You must submit your résumé for my comments with your cover letter.  See p. __  in this course pamphlet. The rough draft is due on ____ and the final draft is due with the cover letter final draft.  With this résumé you should emphasize your education.

III.  Thank-you letter

After you have had an interview for a job, you should seriously consider sending a thank-you letter.  In this letter, you generally would 1) thank the reader for the interview, 2) tell your reader what you learned from the interview, and 3) restate your interest in the job.  This is due with the final drafts of your cover letter and résumé  (___________ ).

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