Now let’s look at the “Flop Five”

1-    Short means not 0

Your Cover Letter must be short but be careful not to write less than 200-250 words. It’s better to use short but impressive sentences.

2-    Don’t judge

Be careful not to express your judgment nor to your precedent company or to your future one. It would be so unpleasant.

3-    Personal  Stories are for Interview

In your Cover Letter try not to use “I” a lot of time. Give information about yourself but do it calmly. Only when you get an interviw, you can tell your personal stories.

4-    Mistakes

Pay attention not to make mistakes in your Cover Letter. Be careful to word spelling, grammatic and syntax.

5-    Use your own words

Be careful not to use someone else’s words or better, not to use clichéd statement or standard opening-lines. It would give to your letter an old aspect.

I hope my advices can help you in writing your Cover Letter. Remember that a Cover Letter is the first thing a potential employer sees about you and, depending on the Cover Letter, he or she will decide whether to read or not your Curriculum Vitae.

An example not to follow

Name: Eric Brown

Address: 99 Long Road, London, ENGLAND, CH68 1PP

Telephone: 01111333355

Date of Birth: 26 Aug 1962

Work History:

1995 to 2002

Parcel Man Delivery Company

Worked for a local firm that sends parcels all over the country. I am used to speaking to people on the phone and understanding where they want to send parcels in the country because I have done this job for nearly seven years now. I am responsible for information that I get off the sheets. I worked with a number of people in the office. I used the phone a lot.

1989 to 1994

BIG TRUCK LTD

I worked for a haulage company that used special software to plan routes. They went all over the country with different types of frozen foods that had to be collected according to the job sheets. Different lorries had different ways of working.1982 – 1992Royal MailI started of as a postman on a local round that used to deliver to many housing estates. After five years I got moved off the rounds and in to the sorting office on the automated sorting machine. I GOT trained on this for six weeks in Glasgow. I was also responsible for the robot.

Hobbies: Five a side football with the team from the local pub. Fishing and Golfing with my son.

Why is it wrong?    

First of all, the CV is not easy to read, there’s a bad spelling and a poor formatting.  Secondly, in the Work History, “I” is used a lot of time that suggest much more opinion rather than fact. Then, while talking about Education, is better to try to be more impressive and precise.

Finally, it’s better to create the category Hobby and Interests, instead of Hobbies, giving more information about the personality.

Surely, after receiving this CV, the company sent to Eric a letter turning him down.

For those of you unfamiliar with Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (or Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein), I should explain that behind his grotesque countenance, the monster actually had great depth and appeal.

I mean, Frankenstien’s monster had even read Paradise Lost. Doesn’t exactly say “brutish monster.” Side note: this article arguably could have been titled “Is Your Resume Milton’s Satan?” but I thought it sounded more cumbersome.

So, how does this relate to your resume?

One critical yet overlooked way to do this: make your resume look unique. Say you can have the resumes of a quantum physicist with 25 years of experience and a college freshman majoring in partying and a minor in joining superfluous clubs side by side. If they are formatted in the exact same way, it’ll take you a moment to realize the difference.

So, if you’re using a preloaded resume template like this… or this… or this, you’re doing yourself a disservice to put it nicely. More frankly, not only does your resume look terrible, it looks like everyone else’s. Furthermore, putting in the time to make a truly unique resume, not just the information but the design, it demonstrates you are willing to work in order to stand apart from your peers.

After you wrote your CV and Cover Letter the problem is: how to send it? By traditional letter or by e-mail? Which one looks more “professional”? E-mail is nowadays the most spreaded way to communicate, because it’s faster and easier than letters. To choose if it’s better an e-mail or a traditional letter, you have to consider who you are, who you are writing to and why. In many cases, if you are answering to a job announcement, there is no problem since many companies indicates you whenever  they want to receive your CV by traditional letter or by e-mail.

Sending it by mail: Mailing

Mailing is the name of a job search strategy.  Basically, it concern sending your Curriculum Vitae to a large number of companies, without answering to any job announcement but just to let them know that you are interested in. Mailing has some great advantages: it allows you to contact more than one company simultaneously, it’ allows you to contact even companies far away from your area in an easy way and it allows you to come up with your shyness.  But be careful to write personalized mail to every company and not a common e-mail just sending your CV as an attachment.  Then, you can behave in two ways: you can just wait to receive a call from one of the companies you contacted or you can call the company, just to know if they received your CV, if they read it and if they eventually wants to interview you.

History

The Indian national anthem of Jana Gana Mana has a history of its own and a very mythical one. The poem was written in Sanskrit and it is believed to be a part of Brahmo hym composed by Rabindarnath Tagore. The competition was between the famous “Vande Matram” written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and the “Jana Gana Mana”. After heated discussions and loads of controversies the Constituent Assembly of India accepted it as the formal national anthem on 24^th January, 1950.

Poetry

The anthem is a beautiful composition of inspirational poetry and depicts the emotion attached to the motherland India. The words seem to have gathered from up and down of India chanted by the Indian Ocean.

Composition

The anthem was originally composed by Captain Ram Singh Thakur of Indian National Army. The anthem in its formal rendition takes 52 seconds and is sung mostly in the same composition. Following the trails many renowned musicians from India recomposed and re sang it over the years however the composition of A. R. Rahman is one of the most famous and liked ones.

Despite the controversies to this day the song remains the voice from every Indian heart and makes them proud wherever they are in the world.

Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people,
Dispenser of India’s destiny.
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Shindhu,
Gujarat and Maratha,
Of the Dravida and Orisa and Bangla;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
mingles in the music of Jamuna and Ganges and is
chanted by the waves of the Indian Ocean.
They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise.
The saving of all people waits in thy hand,
Thou dispenser of India’s destiny.
victory forever.

Dr. Raihan is the Head of the Department of Computing. He holds a PhD in Computer Engineering from Wuhan University of Technology, China. His research interests include Grid and Cloud Computing. He lectured me the course on Parallel and Distributed Computing in a matter which developed my interest in the field.

Ms. Sana Khalique is my all time favorite teacher. She taught me many courses starting from the 1st semester to the 6th. She taught Object Oriented Programming, Data Structures and Algorithms in a way that really helped a lot in my advanced courses. She is very friendly and full of information. She is on the team of SAGE (the Open Source Mathematics Software System) and an advocate of Open Source software. She made me learn the Python language and many interesting softwares. Her experience of academics and industry is reflected in her rich learning lecture sessions.

Both teachers have made me learn a lot during my undergraduate degree. Its the effort of them which made me fond of the Computer Science field.

The most awaited gift of summer in the Indian sub continent, the King of fruits and the most loved fruit worldwide is my personal favorite Mango. May to September is the season of fresh ripe Mangoes. Markets and shops are filled with beautiful gold color  mangoes. People enjoy eating and sending them as gifts. The sweet and sour tasting mangoes make part of  a number of desserts, drinks and delicacies.

Research and Export

There are more than 100 types of Mangoes. Most popular types are cultivated in the Indian sub continent and exported to a number of western countries. Both the Governments of India and Pakistan organize events and exhibitions and provide research opportunities for the promotion and advancements in the cultivation of the fruit. In India the Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research is conducting research for bringing modern agricultural advances in the cultivation of Mangoes. It provides experimental farming land of around 133 hectares along with facilities of nursing and training.

Personal Favorite

My personal favorite of all mango desserts is the Mango milk shake. After a long tiresome lecture  a glass full of Mango milk shake provides ample energy for the rest of the day activities. This summer my energy drink is gonna be my favorite mango milk shake. I hope all will have an awesome summer with mangoes around.

Divide it in three

To make your Cover Letter more impressive, you should divide it in three parts.

1 – In the first part you should write down who you are and where have you heard about that job position. For example, if you read the job posting in the newspaper or on the web, be sure to mention that.  And if you have a friend working in the company who referred you this job position, don’t be shy!…. you can mention this mutual contact.

2 – In the second one, you should write down what are your skills, for example languages or computing, in order to make your reader know what you have to offer.

3- The third part is the conclusion, you should remember your reader your name, e-mail address or telephone number and, of course, you should remember your interest for the job.

Discovering Cover Letters

The very next day, I searched the web to find out what a Cover Letter was and now I want to share my experience with you all.  A Cover Letter is a document ( a letter ) you should attach to your Curriculum Vitae in order to complete it.  Pay attention not to duplicate the information contained in the CV.

What I’m supposed to write on a Cover Letter?

A Cover Letter resumes the reasons why you are applying for that kind of job, in your Cover Letter you can underline your skills and your experiences. In your Cover Letter you are supposed to show all your interest and knowledge about the position you apply for.  As the Cover Letter is the first contact you have with the company, it’s important to be careful to write it correctly and most clear as possible.

Q1: Is my CV  supposed to be one page long?

A:  You can write one or two pages (A4 format), but be careful not to exceed the limit of two pages!

Q2: I’ve done too little work to fill in my CV. What I’m supposed to do?

A: It doesn’t matter. Just write down what you did and remember, never invent your experience.

Q3: Do I have to include all of my exams results?

A:  No, it’s not necessary. Just include the latest ones.

Q4: If I have to e-mail my CV, what should I do?

A: My advice is to save it in PDF format that is better than MS Word to be attached on an e-mail.

Q5: Do I need more than one CV? Have I to translate it?

A: It depends, if you want to apply for a job in a Non-English speaker country, my advice is to translate your CV.  For example, as I’d like to work in Spain because I studied Spanish, I decided to translate my CV in Spanish.

Have I answered to your questions or do you have more?