Hi everyone, Where I live, the unemployment is 11.5%. I believe that it's imperative that my cover letter really stands out from the competition. Now, I have some copywriting ability, and most likely, my competition will have none since the field is software developers and engineers. I was wondering anyone can help me out with ideas and concepts that would be very strong and resonate with HR people and potential employers in an economy that is this terrible. I do know that I am a very qualified software developer, and I am far more experienced, knowledgeable and skilled than my competition. I've just learned more, cared enough to be very talented at it than the average person, and I'm a pretty smart guy as is (151 IQ). I've written 3 published books. I've ran 3 companies, one which made several million dollars for several years in 2005-2008. I also designed and wrote 90%+ of the software that drove that business. Google actually called me during that time, thinking I was an employee. They tried to steal me away from the company. Unfortunately, I was co-CEO, so I wasn't really prepared to go. It's too bad I no longer have that contact, because I would take them up on their offer now As a software architect, I'm very skilled at using patterns, and designing frameworks, which means my code is more elegant, modular and reusable, which saves money... it's cleaner and easier to maintain, which lowers long-term maintainability costs... and makes it easier to add new features to the program more quickly. I test my code religiously, so I produce very few bugs that actually make it into production code. When I do spot them, they are easily fixable because the foundation and test-bed of the software is very stable and rigorous. It's not a mess. I'm very diligent at designing things properly and refactoring code so that the design is elegant and there is no code duplication. This means the code is tighter, easier to modify, less likely to introduce new bugs... and all of that more or less comes down to lowering maintainability costs. I also program in such a way that my productivity doesn't really go down as more and more code is added to the system. Usually with bad programmers, the economies of scale go down... so if they wrote 400 lines of code per day at the beginning of a project, they may write 40 lines of code several months later. This wasn't much of a problem with me. I've programmed several thousand class applications all by myself, or working within a small group, and we outperformed companies with million-dollar budgets and a staff of 12 to 24 programmers. Because of our rigorous testing and elegant design, our software was much more usable, user-friendly and less buggy than any of our competitors... and ultimately, that helped us garner top clients which propelled us to become the industry leader making millions per year, even though we were the underdogs. I'm pretty much up to date on all the latest and greatest Opensource libraries and tools within the Java Enterprise world. This might actually be a bad thing, as most of the jobs in my city are using older languages, so I doubt they care. Now is probably not the time to have them start upgrading. I guess I just want to know which areas to highly and what to focus on, or even to focus on software development at all. I really need to convince them that hiring me is going to save them money and that the ROI is going to be higher than if they did not hire me on their overall balance sheet. Any tips? Thanks!
Ok, here is a freebie to convince you to hire me: Unemployment has climaxed to 11.5% in in my region, so it is imperative that my cover letters surpass the quality of that of my competition. Since my competitors, as software developers, most likely lack writing skills, my copywriting experience will contribute to my success. In light of a depressed economy, it is crucial that my introductory materials resonate with those in the Human Resources Departments of potential employers. So I am searching for suggestions here in this forum. Allow me to boast about some of my qualitifications, if I may. I am a qualified software engineer who is likely more knowledgeable and experienced than any of my competition. I say this because I have learned much and I combine that knowledge with care in building my talent, while others sit by wasting their potential. My IQ has been measured at 151, but it is an effective IQ, because I actually use it in the course of my work as a compliment to meticulous care for the quality of my production. ... Cheers! ~Ron
People write resumes that are about them. When I've written a resume, I write it to the target, basically positioning it to how my skills can bolster their business. The last one I wrote was about 3 years ago. I did it with a headline on the outside that looked like a classified ad "Wanted:..." At any rate, it had a cover and on the inside I did sections that outlined by skills and then positioned them how it would benefit the company. I sent three. I got 3 calls, two of which said they were not hiring but HAD to speak with me. As far as the job search, I had a family crisis so did not follow through other than to call and then call back with the news that I would not be applying because of the family issue at the time. You have to know that looking through stacks of resumes is boring. Having one that stands out works. Don't make it silly, make it very targeted.