Tricks for a good resume and cover letter.

1. Collect a number of newspapers or go on line to look at want ads. These DO NOT have to be local or even up-to-date.

2. Identify all the jobs that may be of interest to you. These may vary widely if your work history warrants it. (This applies to me as I have worked at an engineer, network manager, and writer.)

3. Highlight all the buzz words in the ads.

4. Include as many of these buzz words as you can when creating your resume.

5. Now look for current openings within your locale.

6. Highlight the buzz words in these ads and identify those that do not appear in your resume.

7. Use those “missing” buzz words to pepper your cover letter.

This technique will give you a single, flexible resume for different jobs. The applicable buzz words will be read by HR staff or computer scanner without parroting the job ad directly, more subtle. I have used this method for myself and many others with very good results.

This is a technique I developed myself. I have been able to get good jobs for people who were jerks using this method.