Cover letters for resumes
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Cover letters for resumes
Anyone have any advice on how to put together a good cover letter for a resume. I've been military for the last 18 years and am clueless on this job hunting thing.
Iconoclast
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To: Blade 88
This is the wrong forum to ask advice on the writing of a cover letter when sending a resume. It is not to say that the advice that might be offered is not good advice but it will in most cases be slanted to the way job applications are made in Europe and the UK. What is correct in those areas in most cases will not work if you are applying for a position in the states. My advice is to type in cover letters in the address bar of your computer and see what comes up. I just did it and you will be surprised as to how much information is available.
Two main areas to avoid are salary and personal information. If you are an Officer in the AF, Navy, Army or Marine Corps the person you send the letter to will have means to determine what you are making.
Good Luck
This is the wrong forum to ask advice on the writing of a cover letter when sending a resume. It is not to say that the advice that might be offered is not good advice but it will in most cases be slanted to the way job applications are made in Europe and the UK. What is correct in those areas in most cases will not work if you are applying for a position in the states. My advice is to type in cover letters in the address bar of your computer and see what comes up. I just did it and you will be surprised as to how much information is available.
Two main areas to avoid are salary and personal information. If you are an Officer in the AF, Navy, Army or Marine Corps the person you send the letter to will have means to determine what you are making.
Good Luck
Iconoclast
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To: Blade88
I stand to be corrected but I believe that CV is British and European speak for a resume. I believe that they are the same. You stated that you will retire in several years (18 in and 2 more to go) and in that case the writing of a CV or Resume is a long time off. I feel that if you wish to work outside of the United States where your licenses are recognized you should concern yourself with obtaining the necessary licenses that are required outside of the United States.
This might be a non-starter if you will be flying an N Registered helicopter outside of the States. (I think).
I stand to be corrected but I believe that CV is British and European speak for a resume. I believe that they are the same. You stated that you will retire in several years (18 in and 2 more to go) and in that case the writing of a CV or Resume is a long time off. I feel that if you wish to work outside of the United States where your licenses are recognized you should concern yourself with obtaining the necessary licenses that are required outside of the United States.
This might be a non-starter if you will be flying an N Registered helicopter outside of the States. (I think).
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Hope this helps.......
"For low-timers, and anyone else for that matter, visiting as many companies as possible is about the only way to get yourself known. Just sending a resume (see below) is not good enough when they haven’t seen you before. When you do visit, make sure your car is clean, you are well-dressed and presentable, etc. and prepared to camp out on the doorstep – bringing the doughnuts for the coffee every day is definitely a good ploy! Believe it or not, someone with relatively low experience and who gets on with customers is actually in a better position to get hired than if it were the other way round, as experience and flying techniques can be taught – personality can’t.
You will have to do a bit of research about every company you target – you will certainly need the name of whoever does the hiring, and the head of the department you want, if they are different (in most cases, it will be the Chief Pilot or Base Manager, or, in other words, someone with local knowledge). Only go to the personnel department as a last resort, and even then just to ask for the right name(s). You need to know the sort of work they do, the type of customers they have, where they operate, and tailor your initial conversation around it, emphasising the benefits you can bring which cause them the least amount of work.
For example, in Canada, one of the first questions you will be asked is if your PPC (Base Check) is current, because it's transferrable between companies (it isn't in Europe), and they won't have to spend money sorting you out. It's almost guaranteed that the next question will concern either a mountain course or long-lining experience, so be prepared. The point is that their requirement for a pilot is to solve a problem, and you need to be the one with the solution, so get their attention, then create the desire to employ you and, more importantly, do something about it. In fact, the sort of telephone conversation a busy Chief Pilot up to the ears in paperwork would like to hear is something like:
“Hi, I’m an Astar pilot with mountain and longlining experience, available now.”
or:
“I can fly a KingAir and I’ve got over 1000 hours turbine time.”
Music to the ears. Just adjust it for your own situation, but only get detailed after you start fishing for what they want. If you get asked any question at all, you've got what is known as a "buying signal", but the question will likely come after a short period of silence, which you shouldn't break. Answering apparent brushoffs with further questions should keep the conversation going. If you can introduce the name of somebody already known to them, so much the better.
The Advert
If there is one, it’s usually the last resort for companies who need staff—apart from being outdated anyway, the best jobs are almost always filled by word of mouth, and the ad is placed merely to satisfy legal requirements. In fact, the way an advert is worded can tell you much about the company you may be working for.
However, your face may fit better than many suitably qualified people, and it's a favourite hobby of some pilots to keep applying for jobs anyway, so to help you get on where you may be at some sort of disadvantage (whether you're one of many applicants or you haven't quite got the qualifications required), you may need to employ a few tactics. The best known is through your c.v., or curriculum vitae for short, or even resume if you're in North America.
Tip: One tactic that works more often than not, when answering an ad, is to apply relatively late, say a week after it appears, ensuring that the bulk of them are out of the way and whoever has become cross-eyed looking at them will get yours when he's back to normal, possibly all by itself so you are noticed more. You also (theoretically) go to the top of the pile. Another one is to always make a follow-up call, including after an interview. In some companies, the process is very long and you can easily get forgotten.
Your CV (Resume)
Applying for a job involves selling yourself, by which I mean that you are the product to be marketed, and the process starts even with the envelope in which you send your details. It's surprising how many people fail to use the cv and covering letter (they are, after all, a first introduction) as properly as they should be. I have seen very badly handwritten cvs with no idea of spacing on ragged paper that would disgrace a fish and chip shop. This type of introduction says little for your self-image and is likely to go straight into the bin – if it doesn’t, it will be a permanent reminder of what you were like long after the interview. You have to realise that, in a large company, as well as the hiring process being long and tedious, decisions are made because people are frightened of making mistakes, not because they might be the right ones, and people higher up in the food chain than your interviewer will be rubber-stamping their choice without ever having met you, so you’ve got to make the paperwork look right (this, of course, explains why people don’t work so hard in large companies – those who make the least mistakes get promoted, and those who work the least make the fewest mistakes).
Having said all that, in a lot of aviation companies the atmosphere is relatively informal, and, although you need a resume, hardly anyone ever reads it, at least not till you make them do so by turning up on their doorstep, so take the following remarks with as large a pinch of salt as you feel able. You may only be required to fill in an application form, which will also involve a breakdown of hours—usually First Pilot and Grand Totals. The initial contact could well be a faxed one-page letter, with full details later when asked for more.
Tip:Keep a running breakdown of your hours, separate from your logbook and updated monthly, say, in a spreadsheet, which will help you extract these figures when required. It will also be a back-up should the original get lost, but a logbook must fulfil certain requirements—see Legal Stuff.
However, a large company with a personnel department (which therefore deals with several other professions) will expect to get the full treatment. Like flying, the more preparation that goes into your cv, the better the results you will get. Remember, you're trying to beat the opposition.
The covering letter is a focussing device, and there should always be one, which doesn’t duplicate information in the cv, but may include reasons for wanting to join the company, or, more to the point (salesmanship again), how useful you will be to them, because that’s what they’re bothered about. You could, for example, cover specific points mentioned in the advert, or you know that they’re concerned about.
It is recognised that you may wish to include a breakdown of hours, so a little length in your case is acceptable, but still try to get the information in as short a space as you can without leaving anything out; if you're only going for a flying job, the tendency to include irrelevant information should be avoided, and everyone knows what a pilot does, so your resume will be on the technical side, that is, short, competent and to the point. Management qualifications (if you have them) are not important to somebody who just wants a line pilot (all the advice here should be read in this light – you don't have to include everything). As with all salesmanship, you're trying to make it as easy as possible for the customer, in this case your potential employer, or at least the poor clerk in the personnel office who has to go through all the paperwork before the interviews. Jargon is acceptable, provided it's commonly used, but the problem is, if you don't use it, you may appear to be an outsider, so it's worth mentioning that the clerk's job is to screen you out, or to discover who not to interview, so don't bore them too early, or put things in that might make them feel uncomfortable and give them an excuse. If you feel the need to be more specific, use the covering letter to get your details to the right person.
You need to use quality paper. It should be A4 (or letter size) and white, and therefore inoffensive, but this requirement is really for scanning. By all means hand-write (neatly!) the accompanying letter, but the cv must be typed on one side of the paper only with the script centralised, with no underlining or too many strange typefaces. Leave at least a one-inch border at the top and bottom of the page with a good sized margin on either side. It will cost a minimal amount to get a two-page cv typed or wordprocessed properly and not much more to get a reasonable number photocopied, preferably on to the same paper. Use a spellchecker, and don’t fax it unless asked.
It should include your career history, commencing with your present position and working back about 5 years in detail, the remainder in brief. The name and town is enough to identify employers with a brief description of their activities, if needed.
You may include reasons for leaving your current position. When people read a cv they almost always do it with a highlighter in one hand to mark relevant passages for later inquisition, and it's a fair bet that this will be a prime target.
In Summary, the layout must be neat, as short as possible, well spaced and easy to read, with a positive attitude being conveyed throughout.
The Interview
Let us first of all establish what the interview is not. It has nothing to do with your competence as a professional, except for the simulator ride (if one is required). The mere fact that you've been put on any list at all, let alone shortlisted, indicates that your flying abilities are recognised (one of my employers didn't even look at my logbooks or licences).
On their side, the interview is really to see if your face will fit. They are about to let your personality lose on their customers and they want to see if you will help solve the problem or become part of it. In other words, you, as an employee, must create value beyond the cost of employing you. As far as you are concerned, it's a chance to see if you will like the Company, in which case you may find it useful to write down what you want from them.
Note: With reference to value, mentioned above, the cost of employing you is not just your wages – you may have training or health insurance thrown in, plus other benefits, not to mention the staff employed to look after you, or any office you might have. In the first year, you may well cost much more than your salary.
Interviewing techniques are very sophisticated these days. You may be lucky and get away with a quick half-hour with someone who is just as nervous as you are, but the full-blown two day affair with Personality and IQ/Psychometric testing is becoming increasingly common. Certainly, it is used by one Electricity Board in the UK, and almost every airline. The full nine yards might include written maths, intelligence and psychological tests (with over 600 questions), a simulator ride, an interview and a medical (don’t forget the briefing for the sim ride).
Whatever it is, you must regard it as having started whenever you walk through the main door of the building or meet any Company person. You are definitely under observation at lunch (why do you think so many people join you?), and the receptionist has been on the team on more than one occasion.
Note: The problem with lunch (for you, anyway) is that it's an opportunity for many questions that cannot be asked elsewhere, so be even more on your guard.
So, the interview is even more part of your sales technique. Naturally, you will be smartly dressed and presentable, and you must convince them that they are not so much buying a pilot as peace of mind.
Although unlikely in a pure Aviation company, there may be questions or situations designed to put you well and truly on the spot by trying to destroy your composure. To combat this, there are ways of behaving that will give you the most confidence. Don't talk too much, don't be pushy or negative and don't break silences. Awkward questions are mostly to establish the pecking order should you actually join the company later; the answers to them are not that important. They may even be asked to see how you handle stress and whether you can be intimidated (by passengers, maybe), and the only weapon you have is to practice beforehand, though it's best to pre-handle certain types of question rather than specific ones (you might be asked how your life will change if you are successful, or even whether you would be happier elsewhere). It's certainly not on to slate other companies or be too eager to leave your present one-if you can do either, you can do it to the one you're going for. Do not sit until invited, and if you are not, at least wait until the interviewer sits down. Do not smoke without permission, don't swear, interrupt or "interview" the interviewer, even if he is inept. Nor is it a good idea to argue, be familiar or apologise for yourself. The best tactic is to avoid extremes and place you and your opinions firmly in the middle-be the ideal "Company Person", in fact. By the way, the interviewers to watch out for are the surly or the quiet ones.
Going back to the cv and the highlighter pen, you will more than likely be asked why you're going for that particular company and the reasons for leaving any previous employment. In the first case, you don't want to say that you have a mortgage, kids, etc. (those are personal problems) and, in the second, try not to give money or better opportunities as a reason for moving on—well, not more than once early on in your career, anyway. Don't even think of mentioning personality clashes or "philosophical differences" as they are more politely known (unless you want to be a trial lawyer!). Oh yes, and DO NOT TELL LIES.
[ 17 October 2001: Message edited by: paco ]
"For low-timers, and anyone else for that matter, visiting as many companies as possible is about the only way to get yourself known. Just sending a resume (see below) is not good enough when they haven’t seen you before. When you do visit, make sure your car is clean, you are well-dressed and presentable, etc. and prepared to camp out on the doorstep – bringing the doughnuts for the coffee every day is definitely a good ploy! Believe it or not, someone with relatively low experience and who gets on with customers is actually in a better position to get hired than if it were the other way round, as experience and flying techniques can be taught – personality can’t.
You will have to do a bit of research about every company you target – you will certainly need the name of whoever does the hiring, and the head of the department you want, if they are different (in most cases, it will be the Chief Pilot or Base Manager, or, in other words, someone with local knowledge). Only go to the personnel department as a last resort, and even then just to ask for the right name(s). You need to know the sort of work they do, the type of customers they have, where they operate, and tailor your initial conversation around it, emphasising the benefits you can bring which cause them the least amount of work.
For example, in Canada, one of the first questions you will be asked is if your PPC (Base Check) is current, because it's transferrable between companies (it isn't in Europe), and they won't have to spend money sorting you out. It's almost guaranteed that the next question will concern either a mountain course or long-lining experience, so be prepared. The point is that their requirement for a pilot is to solve a problem, and you need to be the one with the solution, so get their attention, then create the desire to employ you and, more importantly, do something about it. In fact, the sort of telephone conversation a busy Chief Pilot up to the ears in paperwork would like to hear is something like:
“Hi, I’m an Astar pilot with mountain and longlining experience, available now.”
or:
“I can fly a KingAir and I’ve got over 1000 hours turbine time.”
Music to the ears. Just adjust it for your own situation, but only get detailed after you start fishing for what they want. If you get asked any question at all, you've got what is known as a "buying signal", but the question will likely come after a short period of silence, which you shouldn't break. Answering apparent brushoffs with further questions should keep the conversation going. If you can introduce the name of somebody already known to them, so much the better.
The Advert
If there is one, it’s usually the last resort for companies who need staff—apart from being outdated anyway, the best jobs are almost always filled by word of mouth, and the ad is placed merely to satisfy legal requirements. In fact, the way an advert is worded can tell you much about the company you may be working for.
However, your face may fit better than many suitably qualified people, and it's a favourite hobby of some pilots to keep applying for jobs anyway, so to help you get on where you may be at some sort of disadvantage (whether you're one of many applicants or you haven't quite got the qualifications required), you may need to employ a few tactics. The best known is through your c.v., or curriculum vitae for short, or even resume if you're in North America.
Tip: One tactic that works more often than not, when answering an ad, is to apply relatively late, say a week after it appears, ensuring that the bulk of them are out of the way and whoever has become cross-eyed looking at them will get yours when he's back to normal, possibly all by itself so you are noticed more. You also (theoretically) go to the top of the pile. Another one is to always make a follow-up call, including after an interview. In some companies, the process is very long and you can easily get forgotten.
Your CV (Resume)
Applying for a job involves selling yourself, by which I mean that you are the product to be marketed, and the process starts even with the envelope in which you send your details. It's surprising how many people fail to use the cv and covering letter (they are, after all, a first introduction) as properly as they should be. I have seen very badly handwritten cvs with no idea of spacing on ragged paper that would disgrace a fish and chip shop. This type of introduction says little for your self-image and is likely to go straight into the bin – if it doesn’t, it will be a permanent reminder of what you were like long after the interview. You have to realise that, in a large company, as well as the hiring process being long and tedious, decisions are made because people are frightened of making mistakes, not because they might be the right ones, and people higher up in the food chain than your interviewer will be rubber-stamping their choice without ever having met you, so you’ve got to make the paperwork look right (this, of course, explains why people don’t work so hard in large companies – those who make the least mistakes get promoted, and those who work the least make the fewest mistakes).
Having said all that, in a lot of aviation companies the atmosphere is relatively informal, and, although you need a resume, hardly anyone ever reads it, at least not till you make them do so by turning up on their doorstep, so take the following remarks with as large a pinch of salt as you feel able. You may only be required to fill in an application form, which will also involve a breakdown of hours—usually First Pilot and Grand Totals. The initial contact could well be a faxed one-page letter, with full details later when asked for more.
Tip:Keep a running breakdown of your hours, separate from your logbook and updated monthly, say, in a spreadsheet, which will help you extract these figures when required. It will also be a back-up should the original get lost, but a logbook must fulfil certain requirements—see Legal Stuff.
However, a large company with a personnel department (which therefore deals with several other professions) will expect to get the full treatment. Like flying, the more preparation that goes into your cv, the better the results you will get. Remember, you're trying to beat the opposition.
The covering letter is a focussing device, and there should always be one, which doesn’t duplicate information in the cv, but may include reasons for wanting to join the company, or, more to the point (salesmanship again), how useful you will be to them, because that’s what they’re bothered about. You could, for example, cover specific points mentioned in the advert, or you know that they’re concerned about.
It is recognised that you may wish to include a breakdown of hours, so a little length in your case is acceptable, but still try to get the information in as short a space as you can without leaving anything out; if you're only going for a flying job, the tendency to include irrelevant information should be avoided, and everyone knows what a pilot does, so your resume will be on the technical side, that is, short, competent and to the point. Management qualifications (if you have them) are not important to somebody who just wants a line pilot (all the advice here should be read in this light – you don't have to include everything). As with all salesmanship, you're trying to make it as easy as possible for the customer, in this case your potential employer, or at least the poor clerk in the personnel office who has to go through all the paperwork before the interviews. Jargon is acceptable, provided it's commonly used, but the problem is, if you don't use it, you may appear to be an outsider, so it's worth mentioning that the clerk's job is to screen you out, or to discover who not to interview, so don't bore them too early, or put things in that might make them feel uncomfortable and give them an excuse. If you feel the need to be more specific, use the covering letter to get your details to the right person.
You need to use quality paper. It should be A4 (or letter size) and white, and therefore inoffensive, but this requirement is really for scanning. By all means hand-write (neatly!) the accompanying letter, but the cv must be typed on one side of the paper only with the script centralised, with no underlining or too many strange typefaces. Leave at least a one-inch border at the top and bottom of the page with a good sized margin on either side. It will cost a minimal amount to get a two-page cv typed or wordprocessed properly and not much more to get a reasonable number photocopied, preferably on to the same paper. Use a spellchecker, and don’t fax it unless asked.
It should include your career history, commencing with your present position and working back about 5 years in detail, the remainder in brief. The name and town is enough to identify employers with a brief description of their activities, if needed.
You may include reasons for leaving your current position. When people read a cv they almost always do it with a highlighter in one hand to mark relevant passages for later inquisition, and it's a fair bet that this will be a prime target.
In Summary, the layout must be neat, as short as possible, well spaced and easy to read, with a positive attitude being conveyed throughout.
The Interview
Let us first of all establish what the interview is not. It has nothing to do with your competence as a professional, except for the simulator ride (if one is required). The mere fact that you've been put on any list at all, let alone shortlisted, indicates that your flying abilities are recognised (one of my employers didn't even look at my logbooks or licences).
On their side, the interview is really to see if your face will fit. They are about to let your personality lose on their customers and they want to see if you will help solve the problem or become part of it. In other words, you, as an employee, must create value beyond the cost of employing you. As far as you are concerned, it's a chance to see if you will like the Company, in which case you may find it useful to write down what you want from them.
Note: With reference to value, mentioned above, the cost of employing you is not just your wages – you may have training or health insurance thrown in, plus other benefits, not to mention the staff employed to look after you, or any office you might have. In the first year, you may well cost much more than your salary.
Interviewing techniques are very sophisticated these days. You may be lucky and get away with a quick half-hour with someone who is just as nervous as you are, but the full-blown two day affair with Personality and IQ/Psychometric testing is becoming increasingly common. Certainly, it is used by one Electricity Board in the UK, and almost every airline. The full nine yards might include written maths, intelligence and psychological tests (with over 600 questions), a simulator ride, an interview and a medical (don’t forget the briefing for the sim ride).
Whatever it is, you must regard it as having started whenever you walk through the main door of the building or meet any Company person. You are definitely under observation at lunch (why do you think so many people join you?), and the receptionist has been on the team on more than one occasion.
Note: The problem with lunch (for you, anyway) is that it's an opportunity for many questions that cannot be asked elsewhere, so be even more on your guard.
So, the interview is even more part of your sales technique. Naturally, you will be smartly dressed and presentable, and you must convince them that they are not so much buying a pilot as peace of mind.
Although unlikely in a pure Aviation company, there may be questions or situations designed to put you well and truly on the spot by trying to destroy your composure. To combat this, there are ways of behaving that will give you the most confidence. Don't talk too much, don't be pushy or negative and don't break silences. Awkward questions are mostly to establish the pecking order should you actually join the company later; the answers to them are not that important. They may even be asked to see how you handle stress and whether you can be intimidated (by passengers, maybe), and the only weapon you have is to practice beforehand, though it's best to pre-handle certain types of question rather than specific ones (you might be asked how your life will change if you are successful, or even whether you would be happier elsewhere). It's certainly not on to slate other companies or be too eager to leave your present one-if you can do either, you can do it to the one you're going for. Do not sit until invited, and if you are not, at least wait until the interviewer sits down. Do not smoke without permission, don't swear, interrupt or "interview" the interviewer, even if he is inept. Nor is it a good idea to argue, be familiar or apologise for yourself. The best tactic is to avoid extremes and place you and your opinions firmly in the middle-be the ideal "Company Person", in fact. By the way, the interviewers to watch out for are the surly or the quiet ones.
Going back to the cv and the highlighter pen, you will more than likely be asked why you're going for that particular company and the reasons for leaving any previous employment. In the first case, you don't want to say that you have a mortgage, kids, etc. (those are personal problems) and, in the second, try not to give money or better opportunities as a reason for moving on—well, not more than once early on in your career, anyway. Don't even think of mentioning personality clashes or "philosophical differences" as they are more politely known (unless you want to be a trial lawyer!). Oh yes, and DO NOT TELL LIES.
[ 17 October 2001: Message edited by: paco ]
Iconoclast
Join Date: Sep 2000
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To: Blade88
No, I don’t think you are jumping the gun. Two years can pass much faster than you think. I am not a helicopter pilot but in reading this forum as well as Just Helicopters what I see is a lot of complaining about low wages and pilots being underpaid for their experience level. Many ex military pilots indicate that as a civilian pilot they are making less than they did when in the military and with far fewer benefits. By indicating that you wish to work outside of the states you set yourself up for an expensive license conversion. Unless, as I stated previously you can tie up with an American outfit running N registered helicopters. In some cases, your potential employers will cut your salary because of your military retirement income.
Here is something to think about. I don’t know your branch of service or, what helicopters you fly but the manufacturers of those helicopters you are checked out in are always looking for people. They sometimes have openings for test pilots, demo pilots. These same companies have openings for tech reps, trainers and the like. Many years ago I worked as a tech rep for Sikorsky and we had an ex AF H-19 pilot hire in as a tech rep with the understanding that he would eventually move up into a pilot position. It took two years but he finally made it.
I would suggest you address a question to Nick Lappos and ask his opinion on what I said.
No, I don’t think you are jumping the gun. Two years can pass much faster than you think. I am not a helicopter pilot but in reading this forum as well as Just Helicopters what I see is a lot of complaining about low wages and pilots being underpaid for their experience level. Many ex military pilots indicate that as a civilian pilot they are making less than they did when in the military and with far fewer benefits. By indicating that you wish to work outside of the states you set yourself up for an expensive license conversion. Unless, as I stated previously you can tie up with an American outfit running N registered helicopters. In some cases, your potential employers will cut your salary because of your military retirement income.
Here is something to think about. I don’t know your branch of service or, what helicopters you fly but the manufacturers of those helicopters you are checked out in are always looking for people. They sometimes have openings for test pilots, demo pilots. These same companies have openings for tech reps, trainers and the like. Many years ago I worked as a tech rep for Sikorsky and we had an ex AF H-19 pilot hire in as a tech rep with the understanding that he would eventually move up into a pilot position. It took two years but he finally made it.
I would suggest you address a question to Nick Lappos and ask his opinion on what I said.
