If you’ve been seeking a new engineering position for a while, chances are your communication has become routine. Your cover letters all start the same way, with the employer’s name and job title inserted for each new job. Your resumes have become standardized. Even your post-interview thank-you notes have gotten stale.
If you haven’t taken a critical look at your job search communications in a while, it’s time to review them closely. Address pieces that aren’t working for you, and improve pieces that are. Here’s how.
- Get into the minds of your potential employers. Put yourself in the position of the recruiters and hiring managers who will be reviewing your materials. What do they do? What do they prize most in engineers? Who would they feel excited about hiring? From this perspective, start reading your job search communication materials.
- Avoid the “one-size-fits-all” approach. If every cover letter you’ve sent begins with “I am writing in response to your job posting….”, or if all your resumes include the six weeks you spent on a volunteer project in college even though you’ve gained similar experience in your career proper, it’s time to start cutting. Instead of approaching every employer in the same way, treat your “stock” responses as a floor, not a ceiling. In other words, research each prospective employer by visiting their website or looking them up in professional directories before deciding whether “I am writing in response to….” is the best way to approach them.
- Recruit (human) help to check for typos. Typos, misspellings, and misplaced commas start to fade into the background the more you read the same document – and you have been looking at your job search communication materials for a long time. Don’t rely on spell or grammar check to catch mistakes. Instead, ask a person who hasn’t looked at your materials before to proofread them thoroughly for you.
At SoloPoint Solutions, our recruiters help connect professionals to great engineering job opportunities in California. If you are looking to advance your engineering career, contact us today to learn more.