Re: Getting Hired...Opinion #2500

[Beth Agnew <beth -dot- agnew -at- senecac -dot- on -dot- ca>]

If that's all I had to go on for a job that sounded like it was 
something I wanted, I'd approach it this way. First, 1-2 years 
experience tells me they are looking for someone just past entry level, 
and will likely pay accordingly. They've said "IT experience writing 
training material", not "experience writing IT training material". To 
me, that's a significant difference. Sounds like they want someone who 
has an IT background but who also has dabbled in or at least done a 
little writing for training. They are not looking for an instructional 
designer, a techwriter specializing in training materials, or a 
technical trainer. That may indeed be what they /want/, but that's not 
what they'll get based on that description. Based on that analysis 
(which may indeed be wrong, we're working with a paucity of information 
here), if I still wanted the job I'd make the first paragraph of my 
cover letter something like this: "Please accept my application for the 
position of IT training materials writer. I am an experienced technical 
writer with strong procedural knowledge who can customize teaching 
points for any audience." I would also place that last sentence on my 
1-page resume (yes, that's all this requires because we have no info to 
work with, so we're just trying to get the employer's attention) where 
an objective might normally go. I might word it differently just to vary 
the message.

The remainder of the resume page would have a brief highlights of skills 
section that mentioned my 5 or 6 best IT training related abilities. I'd 
include 1 or 2 jobs where I wrote training materials, focusing on 
anything I did that was IT related. I'd have Education, a short Personal 
Interests line, and the References Available Upon Request line to finish 
it off.

You don't need much more in this situation because you've got nothing to 
work with. You either get their attention with your first line, or you 
don't. If you do, they'll look at your experience and education to see 
if they support the claims you made in the first sentence. If everything 
is consistent, you will probably get a call, or it will invoke more 
information back from the recruiter. It's much better to target what you 
know for sure or can make reasonably accurate guesses about.
--Beth

----- Original Message ----- From: "Ned Bedinger" <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>