Monday, March 9: Cover Letter Peer Review

Instructions

Today, we will review one another’s Cover Letters in class.

We will have two rounds of review—in other words, each of your letters will be reviewed at least twice in class today.

Round 1 (6:00 – 6:25) — Find your first peer review partner & their cover letter blog post.

Round 2 (6:25 – 6:50) — Find another peer review partner & their cover letter blog post.

End of Class: Discussion

 

For each round, follow these steps:

1. Find your partner, and locate their post on the Open Lab.

2. You’ll be writing your review comments as a reply to their post. Being “nice” is important in this process, but being critical is important too. So without being heartless and cruel, make your comments as honest and as detailed as you can so that your comments are useful for revision.

3. Respond to these questions about the cover letter you are reviewing.

  • Reverse Engineer the Letter: Without looking at the job ad/listing, read the letter. Then write down what you think the job ad says—you are reverse engineering the letter/ad by doing this—trying to see if you can figure out the job ad just from the letter.
  • Read the job ad. Were you close in your reverse engineering attempt? If you were, then the letter probably meets with some of the employer’s needs. If you weren’t, has the author missed understanding the employer’s needs? Or have they just emphasized certain things and overlooked others?
  • Does the letter make the person applying seem like a good applicant; an unappealing applicant; or an outstanding applicant?
  • Explain why and how you made the judgment in #3. If the applicant was not an outstanding candidate, explain what you think the author needs to do to get into a higher pile.
  • Is the letter free of spelling, mechanical, and grammar errors? Let the author know about the errors you see.

HW for Wednesday: Read: Project Management and Organizing Teams (from the Professional and Technical Writing WikiBook)

NOTE: I’ll have your resumes & cover letter comments to you on Wednesday. Your final drafts of cover letters and resumes will now be due next Monday, 3/16, via our Assignment Uploader.