Page 198 - Complete Idiot's Guide to The Perfect Resume

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Part 2 ➤ Six Steps to a Perfect Resume
Career Casualty
Don’t staple your cover letter
and resume together. Clip them
together with a paper clip
instead so the recipient can
easily separate them for copying
and filing.
Terms of Employment
There are several cool ways to
communicate with folks during
your job search:
snail mail What the U.S.
Postal Service delivers
e-mail Mail sent electronically
over the Internet
fax Memos and attachments
delivered over a facsimile
machine
voice mail Messages left on
someone’s telephone answering
machine or service
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If your printer doesn’t accept a 9 × 12-inch envelope (and most don’t),
it’s perfectly fine to hand-address your envelope. Or you could type or
print out the address on a plain white label, if you have sticky labels for
a typewriter or computer printer.
Snail Mail
If you have plenty of time before the application deadline, the U.S.
Postal Service (increasingly referred to as snail mail) is a great and fairly
reliable way to send your resume and cover letter. There’s no need to
send your packet certified or registered; simply put a stamp for first-
class delivery on that big envelope I suggested and head for a mailbox.
Special Delivery
If you’re in a hurry to get your resume and cover letter to an employer,
use one of the overnight or two-day courier services such as FedEx,
UPS, or the U.S. Postal Service’s Express Mail. Most of these services will
pick up your packet at your address, or you can take it to their dispatch
center and have it sent from there.
Here’s how to prepare your packet:
1. Print out your cover letter and resume.
2. Place your material in a 9 × 12-inch envelope with the
employer’s name and address on it (just in case your stuff
escapes the courier’s packaging).
3. Put your envelope into the courier’s cardboard delivery envelope.
4. Fill out the courier’s form, pay him his money, and you’re done!
Fax Magic
When you’re up against a tight deadline or the job posting says to fax
the resume, go straight to a fax machine and start pushing those but-
tons. Your faxable cover letter and resume should be created exactly
like the ones you would send via the U.S. mail. But they need one
more ingredient—a fax cover sheet, which simply states the following
information:
1. The date
2. The recipient (to whom the fax is being sent)
3. Who is sending the fax (that’s you!)
4. The total number of pages being faxed and the general contents
of those sheets