Anyone want to give this a quick look-over?

[novapsyche]

I'm sending this out today.

With this cover letter you will find a copy of my resume. I hope that your evaluation of it will persuade you to consider me as your next Proofreader/Editor.

I received my bachelor's degree from Grinnell College, one of the Midwest's premier private institutions. I majored in American Studies, an interdisciplinary major that draws mainly from sociology, history and literature. Following graduation, I found employment in a number of professional environments, most recently as a receptionist for Home Builders Finance, a construction loan company; as a sales associate and customer service manager for Meadowbrook Village, a luxury apartment community; and as a typist for Title One of Washtenaw, a title insurance company, all located in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

While at Grinnell, I involved myself in various aspects of print media. I worked as a member of the submissions committees of both the quarterly and annual literary magazines, the Freehand Press and the Grinnell Review, respectively. During my final year, I served as Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Freehand Press. In that capacity, I was the Business Liaison, working with the printing company to make sure the magazine had the look and feel we desired. Also, I was the chair of the editorial board as well as the chief proofreader. Lastly, I was responsible for the final layout of the magazine.

In addition to working on established magazines, I also launched my own literary magazine while at Grinnell. That magazine, the Violet Isis, saw two issues in print as well as a corresponding issue online during the fledgling years of the Internet. This project helped me expand my editorial skills and gave me a bird's-eye view of what it means to be solely responsible for a product from start to finish.

In the years since my days at Grinnell, I have worked primarily as an administrative assistant. My responsibilities in this field require a sharp eye to attention and detail, specifically with regard to spelling, grammar, and style. However, a good deal of my experience has been in customer service. From my first job as a library page to my position as a leasing consultant for Meadowbrook Village, I consistently have striven to present a pleasant and helpful demeanor. I take great pride in being helpful and in doing a job well. At the same time, I have extensive clerical skills, such as word processing, answering phones, drafting correspondence, serving as a point-of-contact for clientele, and working with spreadsheets and databases.

I am a modest, self-motivated organized worker, and I operate well under a deadline. I have a strong work ethic and an intense attention to detail. I enjoy accomplishing a task singularly, but I am also flexible and work well within a team. I enjoy learning new things and am a quick study. For these reasons, I feel I would be an asset to your company and a great addition to your staff.

Please contact me further. I can be reached online at jdawkins@xxxx.xxxx.edu or by phone at (734) XXX-XXXX. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
J. D.

Comments

[mehinda.livejournal.com]

I think it looks great :-)

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've been agonizing over this for several days.

[pachamama.livejournal.com]

What is the substance of what you will be proofreading/editing? It might be worthwile to add a sentence (if you can) about how the subject matter you will be dealing with interests you -- sort of a "I will be dedicated because I have an authentic interest" kind of angle (if that applies).

The question in my mind as an employer would be "why has an obviously intelligent person with a degree from an excellent college worked primarily at jobs for which she seems to be overqualified?" If there is any connection at all between your own literary ambitions and the content of what you'd be editing, that would answer that question for me, and might be worth hinting at somehow.

But overall I think it is an excellent letter and outlines quite persuasively why you'd be able to do the job extremely well.

Good luck!!

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

I think I'll address that in the interview. It'll almost certainly come up.

[simianpower.livejournal.com]

A couple of points jumped out at me. I hope this isn't too pointed, but you asked for critiques.

1. Your first sentence should probably be about the position you're applying for. You jump right in to say "With this cover letter you will find a copy of my resume" but it'd be nice to know up-front what you're applying for such that even after the interview someone just glancing at this could know immediately.
   
2. The last sentence of your second paragraph ("Following graduation...") is clunky. You did use punctuation correctly, but it took multiple re-reads to follow what you were talking about and when. For a proofreading job, I'd make this as easy-to-read as possible, probably by splitting up the sentence.
   
3. The two paragraphs about your Grinnell experience were well-written.
   
4. Really picky: I'd change the term "a good deal" to "a significant percentage" or something similar. "Good deal" is probably too informal/loose of a term for this context.
   
5. The last two paragraphs have a few odd word/grammar choices.
   
   1. You need a comma after self-motivated since it's the second of a list of three properties.
      
   2. An "intense" attention to detail? It's not wrong, but for some reason jumped out as strange when I read it. Maybe "focused" would work better?
      
   3. Same thing with "singularly". Maybe it's the geek in me but I thought of black holes when I read that. :) I'd suggest "by my self" or "alone".
      

Those picky points aside, I agree with pachamama that you have listed some impressive experience IN college but since have been overqualified for the jobs, and should probably mention why.

I hope this helped, and wasn't too offensive in its nitpickiness. (Is that a word?)

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

This helped a lot. Thank you.

[pgdudda.livejournal.com]

My two cents:

"I worked as a member of the submissions committees of both the quarterly and annual literary magazines, the Freehand Press and the Grinnell Review, respectively. " (P3, S2)

Is extremely clunky. I had to re-read it twice to figure out what you were saying. Break it up; discussing each one in a separate sentence will probably work best.

Also, the two parts of "In addition to..., I also ..." (start of P4) seem redundant to me. I'd recommend re-wording that.

Otherwise, nice "cold call" letter. Good luck! :-)

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have problems with simplifying things. I like making things dense and putting in a lot of semicolons.

Thanks. :)

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

The cover letter is just to highlight things that you'll go into detail on your resume, so I might condense this a bit.
---
I hope you will consider me as your next Proofreader/Editor. My resume is enclosed.

I received my bachelor's degree from Grinnell College, and majored in American Studies, an interdisciplinary major that draws mainly from sociology, history and literature. Following graduation, I have worked in a number of professional environments. Those include, most recently, as a receptionist for Home Builders Finance, a construction loan company. I have also worked as a sales associate and customer service manager for Meadowbrook Village, a luxury apartment community and as a typist for Title One of Washtenaw, a title insurance company.

While at Grinnell, I worked as a member of the submissions committees of both the quarterly and annual literary magazines, the Freehand Press and the Grinnell Review, respectively. During my final year, I served as Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Freehand Press. In that capacity, I was the Business Liaison, working with the printing company to make sure the magazine had the look and feel we desired. Also, I was the chair of the editorial board as well as the chief proofreader.

In addition to working on established magazines, I also launched my own literary magazine while at Grinnell. This project helped me expand my editorial skills and gave me a bird's-eye view of what it means to be solely responsible for a product from start to finish.

In the years since my days at Grinnell, I have worked primarily as an administrative assistant. My responsibilities in this field require a sharp eye to attention and detail, specifically with regard to spelling, grammar, and style. However, a good deal of my experience has been in customer service. I also have extensive clerical skills, such as word processing, answering phones, drafting correspondence, serving as a point-of-contact for clientele, and working with spreadsheets and databases.

I am a self-motivated organized worker, and I operate well under a deadline. I have a strong work ethic and am detail-oriented. I enjoy accomplishing a task alone, but I am also flexible and work well within a team. I enjoy learning new things and am a quick study. For these reasons, I feel I would be an asset to your company and a great addition to your staff.

Please contact me further. I can be reached online at jdawkins@xxxx.xxxx.edu or by phone at (734) XXX-XXXX. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
J. D.
---
Even if you sent it out as-is, though, it'd be fine.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

I'm bad at condensing. That's the main thing I work on when I write poetry. :)

I did end up sending it as-was (with a few modifications) because I wanted to get the resume over to the H.R. person in time. I still had some minor mistakes that made me want to kick myself when I saw them later, but she must have overlooked them since she asked me to come in for an interview on Friday.