It’s easy and frankly common to sink Hundreds of hours into a job hunt. The longer your job search lasts, the more desperate it can feel and the more hours you may feel like you have to commit. This is where templates come into play: We don’t want people to be able to do that tell You are using a templatebut using templates behind the scenes saves you valuable time time and energy and enable you to apply for more jobs faster.
Don’t think of your resume and cover letter as an expression of who you are as a person, but as marketing material for yourself as an employee. As a visually boring movie poster, your resume will never be able to capture everything about the plot (you), but should instead highlight only the most compelling things (about your work experience) and leave them interested in learning more.
Here you can find out how to “template” your CV and cover letter.Thank you letters and networking messages without actually sounding like a template.
Create a Template-Based “Master Resume”
For some reason, it’s excruciatingly difficult to find a resume template online that isn’t packed with graphics, photos, and detailed color schemes. Your resume doesn’t have to be flashy or sexy (visually boring movie poster, remember?), it just needs to highlight the most relevant things about you. Canva has many revamped templates, but with a bit of customization this “corporate” template or this “minimalist” template could do the trick. In my opinion your resume should only contain these things in this order:
- Your name and key details (email, phone number, LinkedIn, general location)
- your professional experiences
- Specific hard skills and knowledge (like Zendesk, Greenhouse, Python or Calendly)
- Awards and recognition, if relevant
- education and degrees
In every job you’ve had, you’ve probably done 100 different things in that one job—Whether it’s driving different types of projects, collaborating with stakeholders, collaborating with clients, organizing information, or putting out random fires, I’m 99 years old% sure you made it a lot. While you shouldn’t waste time cataloging every little thing you’ve done (“replied to emails,” “attended meetings”), you should spend some time listing the top 5-10 things you do you have achieved in every job. These should be achievements, not only yours responsibilities. Some examples to get your wheels running:
> In-house development of Product X, which accounted for 20% of the company’s total sales, driving market research and experience design efforts.
> Directed and produced a photo shoot that launched Company Y’s new identity, working with internal and external stakeholders to ensure smooth operations.
> Achieved 100% participation rate for Program Z, a 50% increase over the previous year.
> Leading events teams of up to 25 people, addressing unexpected challenges quickly while maintaining the guest experience.
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When you’re done, add all those items to your resume and then do the same for the job before and the job before and so on. The idea is to keep one long master resume that records all the amazing things you’ve done in each job. Once you’ve found a position you’d like to apply for, compare the job description to your master’s resume. and remove the bullet points that are not directly relevant.
When you’re done, you now have a resume feels customized and highlights only your most relevant experiences without extra typing or too much thinking. Save it as a new file (something like YOURNAME_Resume_COMPANYNAME) and launch it.
Prepare your own cover letter template
There’s zero chance A recruiter or hiring manager will spend just as much time reading your cover letter as you spent writing it, so keep it short, sweet, and easy to copy (or leave it out entirely). Your cover letter template will be something like your resume template as we plan to write a lot of it in advance.
Identify your top 4 to 6 soft skills You feel safe and have a lot of proof of it Experiences with. I specify soft skills because I almost never read a cover letter to learn more about your hard skills—already listed on your CV and/or I will test you on them during the interview. Your cover letter should highlight the hard-to-measure skills you bring and go into a little more detail about how you’ve used them in the past.
Continuing with a bullet point from the previous section, if the job description specifically calls for cross-collaboration, I might prepare to beautify that second bullet point (“Directed and produced a photoshoot launching Company Y’s new identity, working with internal and external stakeholders to ensure smooth operations. and say something like:
During my time at Company Y, I was responsible for the full planning and execution of a branded photo shoot to highlight Company Y’s new modern look, and worked with the entire company and our suppliers to deliver the results. I researched local photographers, created vision decks to illustrate our desired outcome, and worked with Company Y’s executive team to secure approval. Thanks to regular coordination meetings and a multitude of documents and plans to keep the photo shoot going, we were able to achieve our goals within our planned budget and schedule.
I’ll admit this will take a lot of time up front, but once you’ve written something like this for your strongest soft skills, You can copy and paste all your future cover letters. You can also do this preparation slowly over time—Every time you write a new cover letter, take and save some of the phrases about your soft skills that you’re already writing about, of course. Someday you will (yet) lengthy cover letter master repository that allows you to cobble together custom cover letters without wasting hours reinventing them every time.
Use this (personalized) template for thank you notes
A thank you letter should always be short and sweet and as personal as possible.
Hello [INTERVIEWER NAME]!
I just wanted to send you a message to let you know how much I appreciate your time [DAY OF INTERVIEW]. [SENTENCE ABOUT ONE THING YOU BOTH TALKED ABOUT AND WHY YOU FOUND IT VALUABLE]. [SENTENCE ABOUT WHY THIS COMPANY SEEMS LIKE A GREAT PLACE TO WORK/AN EXCITING OPPORTUNITY].
Thanks again and [SOMETHING PERSONAL THAT YOU TALKED ABOUT]/have a nice rest of the week/have a great weekend!
All the best/warmly/cheers/with appreciation/with care,
[YOUR NAME]
If you Really can’t remember anything specific or unique you talked about You can remove the second sentence, but I would recommend writing it down Write notes or the thank you letter right after the interview so you can personalize it well. Don’t send the note right away, although—They haven’t had time to forget you yet. Send it or Time schedule to send it the following morning.
Write a Really networking message
Networking can be a powerful tool in your job search, but finding and reaching out to the people you want to network with can be challenging. Like thank-you notes, my advice for networking requests is to keep things very personal and relatively brief. The worst networking requests I’ve ever received were clearly copy-paste jobs that didn’t even take a moment to validate my name, company, or background—I’m not looking forward to connecting with anyone if they can’t bother to take a second to look at my profile.
My core tenants of networking are:TShow genuine interest in the person you’re addressing (as opposed to just an interest in a job recommendation), ask for specific results (not just vague requests like “I’d like to talk to you”), and write like a human .
Hello [NAME]! I hope you have a nice day/morning/week. I am [YOUR NAME]! I wanted to reach you because I saw you [EXPERIENCE OR THING FROM THEIR LINKEDIN] and I am [SOMETHING IN COMMON WITH THEM OR PERSONAL CONNECTION TO/INTEREST IN THEIR EXPERIENCE/EXPERIENCE]. If you have time, I’d like a 30-one minute briefing with you to learn more about your career and any advice you might give to someone like me. Thank you very much!
