ENG 2002S
ENGLISH FOR SCIENCE AND
ENGINEERING COMMUNICATION
WEEK 10, SESSION 2
RESUME
COVER LETTER
Dr. Yangyu Xiao (Shirley)
School of Humanities and Social Science
shirleyxiao@cuhk.edu.cn
Office: TB 516
TODAY’S SCHEDULE
• Warming up: draft resume sections
• Designing a Print-Based Resume
• Writing an attractive cover letter
REVIEW - ANALYSING THE SAMPLE RESUME
• Do you still remember the resume sample last session. Do you think
remember the key issues to pay attention to in writing a resume?
1) key components
2) language features
What are the key components in this
section?
Job title
Employer’s name, city and state
Job duties
Dates
STRUCTURE YOUR EXPERIENCE
• In this section, you need to include:
o Job title;
o Employer’s name, city, province/state
o Dates of employment/involvement (month and year);
o Significant duties/responsibilities, activities, and accomplishments
• In chronologic or reverse chronological order.
• Make this section clear, concise, well-spaced, and organized, and use
bullets.
WARMING UP/ACTIVITY ONE:
HIGHLIGHT YOUR QUALITIES THROUGH YOUR EXPERIENCE
• Work in the same group as last session.
1. Check the qualities you have brainstormed last session (in Wechat groups).
2. Draft an experience section. Describe your experience in a way that can
highlight 2-3 qualities (technical skills/transferable skills/professional
values) you mentioned.
3. Try to use experiences related to the first 2 years university study.
4. We will ask another group to guess what qualities can your experience
highlight.
Please complete your task on the whiteboard.
GROUPS FOR L1(MON/WED 8:30)
1. Data science and big data: Ben, Gresia, Aaron, Lily, Helen
2. CS: Matt, Shuntian, Harry (New energy)
3. CS: Yiran, Eleven, Tony, Mike
4. FE-QF :Nick, Alves, Siri, Rita
5. Chemistry and Bioinformatics: Wendy, Jacob, Jack, Misco
6. Math and Statistics: Aron Ke, Steven, Scarlet, Simon, Andy
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GROUPS FOR L2 (MON/WED 10:30)
1. CS: Junyi, Barry, Jack, Richard, Qijun
2. EIE: Ryan, Candy, Kevin
3. Data science and big data: Eden, Sherry, Jingyi
4. Chem/Pharmaceutical/biological:, Song, Aden, Cindy, Skylar
5. Statistics and mathematics: Evelyn, Levi, Chris, Bokai
6. FE-QF: Tianji, Karry, Charles, Alice, Isabella, Susan
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GROUPS FOR L3 (TUE/THU 8:30)
1. EIE: Nina, Maddy, Jack
2. FE-QF: Kitty, Maeves, Ruiyi, Mengtian, Xiyue
3. Data science and big data: Fiona, Fengyuan, Steven, Lee
4. Data science and big data: Michael Yang, Lucas, Sarah
5. Data science and big data: Ken, Bob, Chris, Dennis(math)
6. Biological/Biomedical: Yueqi, Zhiran, Bobby, Norman, Rick
New Energy: Michael Huang
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GROUPS FOR L4 (TUE/THU 10:30)
1. EIE/ CS : Aria, Monesy, Tom, Charlie
2. Data science and big data: Hardy, Leonard, Eugene, Amelia, Icy
3. Data science and big data:, Statham, Vincy, Gary,
4. Data science and big data: Lily, Xixi, Junlin
5. Math: Antony, Xuteng, Sheryl
6. Math: Marlin, Tommy, Joe, Bruce
7. Statistic: Oliva, Brian
Katherine (Bio)
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STRATEGY NO. 1 USE STRONG ACTION VERB
Strategy No.1 Use strong action verbs.
Identify
Research
Reduce
Streamline
Organize
Design
Represent
Calculate
Manage
Distribute
Explain
Praise
Secure
Please refer to the full list of action verbs
on the Blackboard.
• Reduced delivery delays by an average of three days per order
• Streamlined filing system, thus reducing 400-item backlog to zero
• Organized holiday awards program for 1,200 attendees and 140 workers
• Designed three pages in HTML for company Web site
• Represented 2,500 students on committee involving university policies and procedures
• Calculate shipping charges for overseas deliveries and recommended most economical
rates
• Manage 24-station computer network linking data in three departments
• Distributed and explained voter registration forms to over 500 prospective voters
• Praised by top management for enthusiastic teamwork and achievement
• Secured national recognition from National Arbor Foundation for tree project
STRATEGY NO. 2 HIGHLIGHTING YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• Organized and supervised committees to assist in publicizing,
promoting and raising funds for various senior class functions.
• Developed efficient proofreading methods and an innovative talent for
pasting up difficult articles.
• Tutor two seventh grade students 2-3 hours per week; create interactive
games to increase their understanding of math and grammar.
STRATEGY NO. 2 HIGHLIGHTING YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• Your descriptions should be accomplishments oriented.
• The description should show what you have contributed (job duties) and
what outcome have you achieved for the specific post.
Worked across global groups ensuring worldwide redundancy/transparency for
all platforms and configurations.
Potential job responsibilities
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•
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•
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Administrative support
Budget planning
Coordination
Data exploration and analysis
Financial management
IT support
Product development
Product promotion
Product sourcing
• Job responsibilities will be specific
tasks you have performed.
• Highlight ones that are most relevant to
the post you are applying for.
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Programming
Research
Sales and marketing
Staff liaison
System design
Technical support
Training
Website development
POTENTIAL JOB DUTIES
• Lead a team of 6 people to manage, operate, and support low latency
post-trade brokerage platform;
• Built a new application support team of 5 people focusing on post-trading
straight through processing and data warehouse extract-transform-load
processing.
• Designed and implemented global application monitoring platform.
POTENTIAL JOB DUTIES
• Built Command & Control System for Singapore Civil Defence Force
using C# .NET WCF Services.
• Integrated proprietary software components with commercial off-the-
shell software product.
STRATEGY NO. 3 BE SPECIFIC AND AVOID GENERALITIES
Which of the following descriptions is better?
 Worked with customer.
 Served 40 or more retail customers a
day.
 Resolve the problems in the
work.
 Resolved problem Successfully
about customer daily orders.
STRATEGY NO. 3 BE SPECIFIC AND AVOID GENERALITIES
• Try to quantify results in your descriptions as far as you can.
o Conducted study of equipment needs of 100 small business in Houston;
o Generated personalized orders for sales of $90, 000 annually.
o Created marketing campaign that increased club membership by 25%.
STRATEGY NO. 4 FOCUS ON THE MOST RELEVANT ONES
• Do not list every single thing.
• Customise your information and focus on the most relevant one.
• Keep your resume brief enough to fit on one page (or two pages if your
experience is extensive).
TIPS IN WRITING A RESUME– SUM UP
Four strategies in writing up the experiences.
• Strategy No.1 Use strong action verbs
• Strategy No.2 Highlight your accomplishments
• Strategy No.3 Be specific and avoid generalities
• Strategy No.4 Focus on the most relevant ones
Tips: You may
incorporate technical
skills, transferable
skills and professional
values, into your
experiences.
LANGUAGE IN RESUME
• Resume language should be professional, succinct and expressive. Make
the reader pay attention by using strong action verbs.
o Use the minimum number of words
o Use precise action verbs (i.e., “Managed a group of 4 members to…” instead of
“Responsible for managing a group of 4…”)
o Avoid personal pronouns.
o Use sentence fragments or phrases.
o Use parallel grammatical structures and correct verb tenses.
REMINDER – THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO IN YOUR RESUME.
1. Making grammatical mistakes;
2. Writing in full sentences;
3. Incorrect verb tense;
4. Experience described without sufficient details;
5. Inconsistent font style and size.
DESIGNING A PRINT-BASED RESUME
DESIGNING A PRINT-BASED RESUME
• Headings/Personal information
• Educational experience
• Work/internship based experience
• Awards and others
SECTION ONE: HEADINGS – PERSONAL INFORMATION
• Read the three headings on the next page, which one do you think is
better?
HEADING - EXAMPLE ONE
HEADING - EXAMPLE TWO
HEADING - EXAMPLE THREE
EDUCATION
Education
• Include institution you attended, its location, your degree and date of
graduation.
• List “Anticipated Completion Date” if you haven’t got your degree.
• Education experience typically comes before experience.
• In chronologic or reverse chronological order.
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EDUCATION
Education
• GPA not necessary but can be helpful
o Only use if equal to or higher than 3.0
o You can highlight your major GPA
• Include academic honors if applicable (especially for upper second
honors or above).
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EDUCATION
Education Example 1
MA in Communications, May 2021.
California State University Sacramento, Sacramento, CA.
Deans List, GPA: 3.9/4.0
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EDUCATION
Education Example 2
Bachelor of Science, Concentration: Data Science
Expected Graduation: May 2019.
California State University Sacramento, Sacramento, CA.
Major GPA: 3.7/4.0 GPA: 3.2/4.0
You may include ongoing projects, concentrations and relevant courses.
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EDUCATION
DESIGNING A PRINT-BASED RESUME
• Try to create a print-based resume are attractively formatted to
maximize readability.
• Now we are going to take a look at a few examples. Which one is
readable and which one is not. Why?
Example One
Example Two
Example three
Example four
TIPS FOR MAXIMIZING READABILITY
1. Use a well-known font such as Times New Roman or Arial.
2. Don’t make your margins too small; margins no smaller than one inch.
3. The font size should be 10-, 11-, or 12-. The heading should be no smaller than
10- or larger than 14-point.
4. Don’t use fancy layouts.
5. Be sure that your name is the first line on the page.
6. If you have more than one page, make sure the name and contact is on every
page.
7. Be careful of abbreviations: Minimize unfamiliar abbreviations
COVER LETTER
COVER LETTER
What is the cover letter? How is the cover letter related to the resume?
COVER LETTER?
• The purpose of a cover letter is to attract the attention of a recruiter so
that they can consider the resume attached and invite you for an
interview.
• Cover letter conveys a story about yourself.
• Your cover letter should not repeat all the information in your resume.
Instead, the cover letter should substantiate the resume.
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HOMEWORK GET TO KNOW A COVER LETTER
• Have you ever written any cover letter before?
• Read the sample cover letter and answer the following questions:
1. What shall we include in the cover letter?
2. What are the key components in a cover letter?
3. What key qualities did the writer highlight in the cover letter?
No class on April 5th and 6th – Wednesday and Thursdays.