Claudio's SWA 2


Chapter two of Anderson provides a great deal of information and strategies that can be used to not only write a good resume and job application letter, but also grab the attention of an employer. Anderson presents two types of approaches to resumes, experiential and skill based, something I have not distinguished in the past. Throughout the chapter, Anderson goes into great detail about how the resume should be reader centred and how it should be tailored to the job you are applying for, rather than being a generic list of your experiences and accomplishments. He also mentioned that the use of tense is important and that being concise is an effective way of grabbing someones attention, especially because reading habits differ, some may sit down and read the resume whereas others will give the resume a quick skim. The resume and job application letter also need to be persuasive but humble, so as not to affect the reader’s emotions in a negative way. Lastly, some companies who receive a large volume of resumes will likely use a computer to parse through them, which makes it important to display specific key words you think your employer is looking for as well as formatting the essay in a way that the computer can easily read. With these tips and others Anderson provides in this chapter, I feel that I can definitely write a more effective resume than the ones I have written in the past.

 

I have found two potential jobs that I currently posses a qualifications for and that pertain to my area of study. First, I found a Systems Integrator position at Wayne State using the university’s internal job listing site. The job listing provides a number of details about the expectations and qualifications a potential employee should have. Since I am a student at Wayne State, I already have an understanding of the employer but it will benefit me to do some research into it’s specific technical accomplishments and goals. The other job I found is a Systems Administrator position at a company in my home town called Vista Print. Although not as detailed as Wayne State’s job listing, it also goes into the expectations and qualifications required for a potential employee. Since I know very little about the company, other than where they’re located and what they do, I will have to do more research into their goals and accomplishments.


The resume I wish to produce will have an experiential emphasis, since I do not have a long list of workplace accomplishments but instead a wide variety of academic progress that I can present on a resume that will be relevant to jobs I am applying for. Since this is an experimental resume, I expect to produce one that is one page long, since I believe I can present all the relevant information to an employer in one page. My current resume is one page long but it differs from the format Anderson provides and also provides some information that is no longer relevant. It also omits many experiences I have acquired since I created it. Therefore, I will be modifying my current resume quite heavily.

 

Since I will be applying for technical positions relating to computer science, my current pursuit of a computer science degree will be relevant, as well as the knowledge I have obtained in various computer science courses I have taken. I have also obtained some technical experience from my employment at Wayne State, working as a student assistant. As the current president of the Linux User’s Group on campus, I can demonstrate my proficient knowledge of the operating system through providing this information. Lastly, I’m involved in a few open source projects that may be worth mentioning as well, especially because they are direct examples of my work that can be found online unlike other internal projects I have worked on.