Thought about that. In fact, though, I WILL be going to TJ,s, pick out a product and go YUM! YUM! Then I won't have to lie. (see my remarks about honesty and integrity on my cover letter.)
I hate TJs..dunno, its shitty food that spoils faster than anything else. I like the beverage selection though.
based on their requirements of the job, I would have written a narrative story in form of a cover letter.
Go start your own business. I think you have plenty of knowledge and skills to do so, what it really takes is balls and a willingness to see potential in others. I had a somewhat similar pedigree to you (high grades, lots of extracurricular) in college, although my studies were more in marketing. I did the corporate thing for 15 years, and I guess I learned a lot about running a business. But I could've learned it a lot faster on my own by just throwing up a shingle and starting my business back then. I now run a pretty promising little family software business. Wife does the programming, mother-in-law does customer service, father-in-law does shipping, my dad is effectively my board, a retired CFO does my accounting, a retired PR lady in California does our blog, we hire some consultants for the occasional programming heavy lifting. The key for me was getting lots of "retired" older people involved in helping me succeed. I'm constantly astonished at how smart and under-utilized these people were, and how willing they've been willing to help for astonishingly little money. I know you say you don't like programming, but maybe just knuckle down and come up with an app that's sellable. The programming is secondary compared to the work it takes to get all these other people on board (and teaching yourself how to market). The economy is going to suck anyway for at least 2 years. How long does it really take to get a business off the ground? About two years. So with a little luck you have a quality, sellable product available just in time for people to have money to buy it.
I'm currently re-tooling mine because I feel that mine came across as too generic and did not compliment my resume well.
IMO, you need to write a unique cover letter for every job you apply to. You can have the same basic skeleton, but you need to target it at a specific job. You look at the job posting, then mention all the qualifications they are looking for in their actual posting and either answer them or allude to them.
Here's a cover letter that I recently used for an entry-level management position. It's a bit too long, and the more I read it the less I like it, which is why I'm continuing to rework what to say:
No I know, but it seems like every time I wrote a cover letter, regardless of the position, the letters were looking too similar. Granted, a lot of the positions I was applying for were similar jobs... But yeah, I'm trying to really put the company and their needs in the forefront of my mind for all the cover letters that I'm currently working on. And that actually takes a surprising amount of work and effort, since it needs to be truly unique for each position.
I come from a completely different school of thought when it comes to cover letters. I always figured a cover letter would never get you an interview, but could lose you an interview (in other words no mistakes in the cover letter). But I like what you did with ABM's cover letter and maybe I have been underestimating the value of cover letters all this time.
Don't beg on your first sentence. Say that you are submitting your resume for review for the job you want. Don't say "your organization", mention the specific department you are reporting to. Do not mention you getting a scholarship to complete your college education as some sort of qualification for this position. Seems like you're bragging about it. I would actually delete this entire paragraph. Mention project management in the next paragraph. This is good and relevant. You should preface it with an introductory sentence stating that you have been exposed to various responsibilities. Something like "I have had valuable experience in project management, managing other interns/employees and that you have worked as part of a team in a corporate setting". good. nice, remove the "!" though.
I know, but the rate of getting an interview is much higher. If you write a shitty cover letter, and your app goes in the garbage, that is a lot of wasted work and effort. When I was applying for jobs a while back, I would try to only do one per day. After a while, with better cover letter, I was getting more interviews, even through monster.com, which has a shitload of submissions.
Cover letters are a good way for one to explain why one is qualified beyond the simple resume. It makes a lasting impression. When I put an ad on craigslist to hire a secretary, you don't know how many of them didn't even put a cover letter...I didn't even look at those. The ones that spent the time and wrote a letter specific to the position, I got past the second cut. 3rd cut is I myspaced them and invited the hot chicks to come in.
I've got to add though, many big companies have readers that scan your resumes for key words. Mention those words in the posting within your resume and cover letter if possible.
That's almost how I read the cover letter and resume (skim them looking for the experiece needed for the position). I don't have a ton of experience and actually hated when I was assigned to do interivews all day (the worst is going out to lunch and having to kill an hour of small talk). But when I did read them, I would glance through the cover letter (looking for grammer errors) and then plow into the resume. But it is a competitve market and I like all the suggested changes you mentioned (nice of you to take the time BTW). Again, I'm probably wrong about cover letters as I always thought short and simple.
