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Cover Letter Nerves
Apr. 18th, 2007 08:06 pmI did it. I applied online for the job I described yesterday. It was not too late.
I submitted my resume, specially formatted for text-only reading happiness, and then got the note on what they really want. This times it's just a cover letter, resume, and three references. Within five days.
I'm going to see two of my references tomorrow at a meeting. We'll see if they feel comfortable recommending me for this job or not. And I'll e-mail one or two more. I hate doing this, but at least I know how.
The cover letter. Arg! Time to look at websites again to yank me out of sudden writer's block.
Okay, one web site says to describe achievements that show I have skills and experience they are seeking. That sounds good. Do I have any such achievements? Arg!
The examples they so love to give are usually so quantitative: I increased sales by two billion dollars in only five minutes! Company turnover went from 300% to .05% while I was there. I increased profits seventeen-fold through increased efficiency and by instituting massages on Fridays!
Bleh.
I was going to write a letter and post it and let y'all tell me stuff, but I'm not ready yet and it's getting late.
**
Instead I'll tell you a little about what I learned in a little presentation about course scheduling. See, we have an exciting new staff development program where we can learn something new every two weeks, and today's presentation was on course and room scheduling. You never know when these things are going to be good until it's too late, so I just go to all of them that don't conflict with something. This time I learned some interesting things.
There are only eight people who do all the work (seven right now--if you want an editing job, you can apply for the eighth job). They schedule about 11,000 courses per semester. They have 270 rooms that they control, and the departments control almost just as many rooms. Then they also schedule final exams, study sessions, informal classes, club meetings, and pretty much anything else you can imagine in the rooms.
They have about the same number of rooms as they used to have, but less capacity. This is partly because new classroom technology takes up some of the space. And I already forgot the other big reason.
They need to know several things about the rooms which I never thought of before. Of course they need to know how many people each room holds. This number is calculated by the fire marshall and is based not only on square footage but also other factors like number of exits (no more than 49 people, I think, if there is only one exit) and layout. And they need to know which technologies the room can handle. They also like floor plans--in case final exams are given in multiple rooms, it's nice to put them in adjacent rooms.
It's also nice to know which buildings are being renovated and thus are unavailable--and they need to know it about nine months in advance. Then after the renovations, the capacity has to be recalculated and the rooms have to be re-numbered according to criteria set by the Americans with Disabilities Act. All the room numbers in our newly-numbered buildings start with a digit that indicates the floor, followed by a decimal, followed by a number. For rooms in basements, the first digit is a zero. This system doesn't work so great for buildings that have multiple basements.
So, Scheduling communicates with architects. Also with custodial services so the latter know which rooms to unlock each day, especially on weekends. Also with the police about what's going on. For example, things should be as quiet as possible during finals (no loud construction noises, demonstrations, etc.)
I submitted my resume, specially formatted for text-only reading happiness, and then got the note on what they really want. This times it's just a cover letter, resume, and three references. Within five days.
I'm going to see two of my references tomorrow at a meeting. We'll see if they feel comfortable recommending me for this job or not. And I'll e-mail one or two more. I hate doing this, but at least I know how.
The cover letter. Arg! Time to look at websites again to yank me out of sudden writer's block.
Okay, one web site says to describe achievements that show I have skills and experience they are seeking. That sounds good. Do I have any such achievements? Arg!
The examples they so love to give are usually so quantitative: I increased sales by two billion dollars in only five minutes! Company turnover went from 300% to .05% while I was there. I increased profits seventeen-fold through increased efficiency and by instituting massages on Fridays!
Bleh.
I was going to write a letter and post it and let y'all tell me stuff, but I'm not ready yet and it's getting late.
**
Instead I'll tell you a little about what I learned in a little presentation about course scheduling. See, we have an exciting new staff development program where we can learn something new every two weeks, and today's presentation was on course and room scheduling. You never know when these things are going to be good until it's too late, so I just go to all of them that don't conflict with something. This time I learned some interesting things.
There are only eight people who do all the work (seven right now--if you want an editing job, you can apply for the eighth job). They schedule about 11,000 courses per semester. They have 270 rooms that they control, and the departments control almost just as many rooms. Then they also schedule final exams, study sessions, informal classes, club meetings, and pretty much anything else you can imagine in the rooms.
They have about the same number of rooms as they used to have, but less capacity. This is partly because new classroom technology takes up some of the space. And I already forgot the other big reason.
They need to know several things about the rooms which I never thought of before. Of course they need to know how many people each room holds. This number is calculated by the fire marshall and is based not only on square footage but also other factors like number of exits (no more than 49 people, I think, if there is only one exit) and layout. And they need to know which technologies the room can handle. They also like floor plans--in case final exams are given in multiple rooms, it's nice to put them in adjacent rooms.
It's also nice to know which buildings are being renovated and thus are unavailable--and they need to know it about nine months in advance. Then after the renovations, the capacity has to be recalculated and the rooms have to be re-numbered according to criteria set by the Americans with Disabilities Act. All the room numbers in our newly-numbered buildings start with a digit that indicates the floor, followed by a decimal, followed by a number. For rooms in basements, the first digit is a zero. This system doesn't work so great for buildings that have multiple basements.
So, Scheduling communicates with architects. Also with custodial services so the latter know which rooms to unlock each day, especially on weekends. Also with the police about what's going on. For example, things should be as quiet as possible during finals (no loud construction noises, demonstrations, etc.)