The Writing of Business A Sample Employment Unit

First comes the resume. (Before that, of course, comes the draft resume.)

If you already have a resume done, that's fine for the draft, but I hope you'll do some experimenting and revising for the resume assignment itself. This resume should have an employment objective stated. Along with the resume, give me a memo telling me why you made the strategic decisions you made about the resume. This analysis of the resume might well be a brief GRACE.

Employment package #1 consists of the following:

1. The resume you handed in and that I graded and gave back to you-the very same piece of paper, so I can see what you did earlier, what I said, and what you decided to do with it.

2. A new, revised resume. The revisions are your call. The impetus for making any particular change might be any of several things: a suggestion from me or from somebody else, a particular use/reader of this resume that would distinguish it from your generic resume, a decision to experiment with a different kind of resume (e.g., a functional rather than a skills resume), etc.

3. A letter to accompany/cover the resume. This letter might be a letter of application in response to an announcement of a position that's available. It might be a letter inquiring about the availability of a position. It might be a letter requesting an informational interview. It might be a letter asking someone to write a letter of reference for you. It might be a letter inquiring about or applying for an internship. It might be. . . .

4. A memo to me explaining what your strategies were in designing this package, who your readers are, what your purpose is, etc.: in other words, another brief GRACE analysis.

1. First is a memo to the class describing the interview. This description should include, first of all, just a narrative of the story: who, where, when, what, etc. Then it should also do some analysis and evaluation. Why did you decide to talk with this person? What did you learn? What were the most significant facts, feelings, or values that you came away with? How has this interview affected your thinking about your career plans?

2. The second written result of the informational interview is a follow-up letter to your interviewee.

Employment packages #2 and #3 can be just about like employment package #1 if you want. That is, you can find two other readers in other organizations who seem useful/interesting people to write, and you write them. Or you can do some creative variations with these packages. Here are two possibilities in particular.

1. You could develop a Web resume and put it on the Web. You'd need to give me both a paper copy and your URL so I could look at it on the Web.

2. You could write a graduate school application essay if grad school is in the picture for you soon.

3. It might be fun and useful to think of still other alternatives, maybe not even having to do with employment search if you're one of the folks who already have a job in the bag.

For questions and suggestions, please e-mail us at kilbornj@stcloudstate.edu or rinkster@stcloudstate.edu.