In the past few weeks I have been writing multiple cover letters as I apply for numerous summer jobs. In a cover letter, the goal is to display the parts of your personality that set you apart, as an applicant, which your resume just cannot do. The cover letter makes you more human to the person reviewing your application. In order to do this effectively I have found myself moving away from telling what I am and more to rhetoric. In my most recent cover letter I had two pages to tell the hiring manager about myself. Instead of telling certain traits like, I am hard working or I want to constantly improve, I told stories that demonstrated the traits I wanted to present for myself. I argued, but without really arguing. I tried to persuade without being to persuasive. I used rhetoric and logic to make my points and make myself sound how I wanted to sound. Not only does rhetoric help my writing in cover letter writing by allowing me to make points without telling, but it also makes my writing better. I feel like my writing flows more naturally from point to point when I use rhetoric. Throughout this course I have found that I am able to use the devices we learned in the beginning of the course to my advantage. I try to use rhetoric every time I write now. It is a better way to write and make points.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Rhetoric in Cover Letter Writing
In the past few weeks I have been writing multiple cover letters as I apply for numerous summer jobs. In a cover letter, the goal is to display the parts of your personality that set you apart, as an applicant, which your resume just cannot do. The cover letter makes you more human to the person reviewing your application. In order to do this effectively I have found myself moving away from telling what I am and more to rhetoric. In my most recent cover letter I had two pages to tell the hiring manager about myself. Instead of telling certain traits like, I am hard working or I want to constantly improve, I told stories that demonstrated the traits I wanted to present for myself. I argued, but without really arguing. I tried to persuade without being to persuasive. I used rhetoric and logic to make my points and make myself sound how I wanted to sound. Not only does rhetoric help my writing in cover letter writing by allowing me to make points without telling, but it also makes my writing better. I feel like my writing flows more naturally from point to point when I use rhetoric. Throughout this course I have found that I am able to use the devices we learned in the beginning of the course to my advantage. I try to use rhetoric every time I write now. It is a better way to write and make points.
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The other day I was doing something similar, I was updating my resume. While I was creating it I found myself googling things like 'Skills to put on a resume', and while I was reading off lists that included words like 'motivated', 'reliable' or 'responsible, I thought who else has googled the same thing and put these same words on their resume? I bet hiring managers read the same skills over and over when looking over resumes. Which led me to think how I can stand out from other applicants.
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