Your resume and cover letter usually provide the first impression of you to a potential employer. As such an important marketing tool, you must demonstrate the link between your skills and experience and the needs of the employer you want to work for. Even though you may spend hours writing and adjusting your resume and cover letter, chances are that an employer will spend less than a minute reviewing it. How do you get your message across in these circumstances?

You must know the product you are selling ... yourself.

You must also know the needs of your audience ... the employer.

Knowing how your skills and experiences will benefit the needs of an employer is essential before writing your cover letter and resume and cover letter.

Your resume is your own personal marketing brochure. It should stand out from the crowd so that the employer will want to invite you to an interview. But most of us are not marketing geniuses. So here's the deal. Before preparing or updating your resume, it is important to: (#1) know what you have to offer; (#2) understand the needs of the employer; and (3) link point #1 and #2 - that is, relate your skills and experience with the needs of the employer.

(1) What do you have to offer? List your skills, interests, abilities and experiences. Where did you develop and use these? Include paid work experience, volunteer experience, extracurricular activities, education, etc. Think about your skills in the following areas: computers, research, written and oral communication, creativity, analytical, project management, problem solving, etc.

(2) What needs does the employer have? Research trends in the industry, who their competitors are, their corporate culture/philosophy, what challenges they are facing, what tasks are normally part of the position being sought, etc. Don't just create a form letter -- address the employer's needs!

(3) Link your skills and experiences with the needs of the employer. Which items on the list you made of your skills match the needs of the employer? Demonstrate to the employer that you have these matching skills and abilities by giving specific examples of when you developed and used them. Make note of any specific accomplishments.

Resume Formats: Resumes usually contain most of the following information (not necessarily in this order): contact information, career objective (optional), education, skills, employment experience (sometimes also a section called related experience), activities, awards and scholarships and a statement about references.

There are many formats you can choose for your resume. The three formats which are most commonly used are:

Chronological format. These are the most common format. It often works well for those with a long and consistent work record, and you want your work experience to be front and centre. Jobs should be listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first). Many employers prefer this format.

Functional resumes. These are useful for those with little work experience, many short contract jobs, and for those changing careers. This type of resume focuses on your skills and accomplishments, not your work history. Also called skills-based resumes.

Combination resumes combines these two formats. It combines your marketable skills with with your work experience and education, so that you can highlight related past experiences.

A resume should be targetted, professional, and easy to read. Tips and common mistakes:

• Ensure your resume is free of spelling and grammatical mistakes. Repeat... this is essential.
• Use action words to describe your accomplishments. Show what you have accomplished - do not devalue your achievements. Point form often works best for this.
• Make sure that the most important and relevant information is listed near the top and clearly highlighted.
• Make sure your resume looks professional. It represents YOU to an employer. Print on a laser printer and use good quality white or off-white paper.
• Do not include irrelevant information, such as birth date, number of children, marital status, SIN, etc.
• In general, resumes should be no more than two pages in length. Be concise.
• Use white space liberally. Your resume should be easy to read and uncluttered.
• Use headings consistently, ie. same font, same size, etc. Don't overuse design elements such as bold, fancy fonts, etc - it will make your resume hard to read. Choose a standard font (ie. Arial or Times Roman).
• Your resume should be individualized for each company/position you are applying for. Resumes that are too generic and are without a clear career objective are likely to be tossed out. Keep the needs of the employer in mind! What can you contribute?
• Always follow up a faxed resume by mailing an original; the quality of faxed copies may vary.

Cover letters should answer the all-important question: Why should we hire you? You must do some research before writing the cover letter to be able to customize your letter to meet the needs of the prospective employer. Show that you understand their organization and industry ... don't send form letters. Of course it is possible that some employers will skip the cover letter and head straight to the resume first, but don't take that chance and risk blowing your chance by cutting corners!

Cover letters should usually be no more than one page in length. The introductory paragraph states why you are writing and how you heard about the position. The middle paragraphs (may be 1-3 paragraphs) must relate your skills and experiences to the employer's needs. Choose the most important skills/abilities needed for the position and be sure to show where you demonstrated these. Show how you would be able to contribute to the organization, not how the position will help you! Try to demonstrate that you have an interest in and understanding of the organization. The final paragraph is used to re-state your interest in the position, thank the employer for their consideration and request an interview.

Cutjobs.com has compiled a list of top 10 tips for cover letters:

• don't address your letter "Dear Sir or Madam" or "To Whom It May Concern"; find out who will be receiving the applications, usually a Human Resources Manager/Advisor, and address the letter to him/her
• check your spelling and grammar and proofread it over and over again; use a word-processing package with built-in spell-checking and ask a friend to check it too ... if you don't take the time and effort at this point, what should the employer expect from you after you have been hired!
• never write the cover letter by hand; word-process it and get it laser printed (or print on the best mode possible using an ink-jet printer)
• use an active voice and take ownership for your accomplishments, but don't start every sentence with "I"
• send a customized cover letter for every position you are applying for, not a form letter. Form letters will not impress the hiring manager. You must research the company and determine the traits and qualities they are looking for.
• be specific ... saying you are efficient, a team player, or have excellent communication skills is fine, but back it up with specifics from your experiences
• don't just repeat what is on your resume. Take the opportunity to tell the employer what you can do for the company- that is, why you should be hired for this particular position at that particular company.
• keep it brief ... cover letters should be kept to one page, and in general, paragraphs should be kept to four to six lines or so. Full-block format is typically used.
• use special effects (bold, different fonts, colour) sparingly or not at all; keep it professional. A standard font (Arial or Times Roman, 11 or 12 point size) is usually a good idea.
• your cover letter is one of your key marketing documents - make it count!

ASCII text is plain text. ASCII text contains no formatting (eg. no bold, no bullets, no underlining). ASCII text allows employers to read the resume you send them via the internet, no matter what computer, e-mail program or word processing package they have. Some employers also prefer that resumes by sent by e-mail as they scan them electronically and do searches using keywords. Others prefer ASCII plain text as they don't want viruses that are sent along with attachments. And be honest... when was the last time you updated the anti-virus software on your computer! Attachments can also sometimes get messed up when the receiving computer tries to decode the information in a different way than your system coded it. In other words, there are many reasons to learn how to create effective formatted ASCII resumes.

To create an ASCII resume, simply type or retrieve your resume with your regular word-processor and then save it as a text-only document (this option is usually located under your "save as" command). Alternately, use a simple text editor (such as Notepad) to write your resume. After saving your work, check the extension at the end of your document - it should be ".txt" - make sure it is, as this ensures that the recipient will be able to read it. While your resume may look dull in comparison to the layout you worked so hard to achieve with your word processor, rest assured that with ASCII text, at least the employer will be able to read it; the last thing you want to do is send in an unreadable resume! Tip: e-mail a copy to yourself to see what it may look like when it is received by an employer.

Tips for ASCII and scannable resumes:

• do not try to use bold, italics, underlining, or special fonts as these do not appear in ASCII text (try using capital letters for emphasis instead); keep things simple
• do not use tabs (use the spacebar if necessary)
• don't use bullets (you can use asterisks or dashes if you want)
• left justification is standard; use hard carriage returns to insert line breaks and make sure lines are no longer than 65 characters in length
• use nouns instead of action verbs to describe your skills and experience
• consider putting a skills/keyword summary section near the beginning
• proofread to make sure everything looks right after saving it to ASCII text

You will likely want to save your ASCII resume after perfecting it so that you can cut and paste it to other advertised positions without the hassle of doing it all over again. And in case you don't know, ASCII is pronounced "askee".

If you are sending attachments, consider putting only your resume in an attachment and putting your cover letter in the body/text of the e-mail message. Whatever you do, don't leave the body of the e-mail blank. Otherwise the end result will be something like sending a photocopied resume; it will look like you though extra effort wasn't worth it (you don't really want a job with them; you just want any job). Also be sure to type in a meaningful subject line for the message; again, don't leave it blank.

You can also put your resume up on the web by creating your own web site. This will allow you to express your creativity but keep it professional ... if you are not familiar with creating web sites, you may end up making yourself look bad instead of good! If you are concerned about privacy, consider providing an e-mail address only instead of your mailing address and phone number.

Many employers, especially large ones, now prefer all applications are submitted online using web forms on their corporate web site. The reason for this is that all information submitted gets stored into their database for easy retrieval later, automated e-mail replies, etc. Much of the information you will enter can be copied and pasted from your regular word-processed resume but do read the forms carefully and be sure to provide the information they ask for.

• tell us about yourself
• what do you know about our organization?
• what interests you about our company?
• what are your strengths and weaknesses?
• what are your related skills?
• what did you most/least enjoy about your last job?
• why did you leave your last job?
• why did you choose your area of study in university/college?
• what motivates you?
• do you prefer working alone or as part of a team?
• what is the bigest challenge you have faced?
• what do you see yourself doing in 5 years?
• how did you prepare for this interview?
• why should we hire you for this position?
• salary (see below).

Don't worry if salary is not discussed during the first interview. It likely will be in the second or at the latest, will when you get an offer! In fact, salary is usually best left for discussion until after the employer has decided that they want to hire you. By doing this, you minimize the risk of taking yourself out of the running.