To: Jojo Huang, Peanut Team Teammate
From: Cheryl Chao, Peanut Team Writer
Date: December 14, 2019
Subject: Application Package Draft Peer Review
Hi Jojo,
I have peer reviewed your formal report. Below are some comments and suggestions for each section of your Application package.
First Impressions:
The report is complete as it includes a cover letter, resume and 3 letters to request for reference. The application package is clearly sectioned into different experiences that is also explained. The application package also looks neat and is easy to find key information at a glance.
Cover Letter
The cover letter was packed with information that showcases your skills and prior experiences. Furthermore, specific examples were given which helps to emphasize your experiences related to this job you are applying to. The tone was also professional and polite. A suggestion would be to organize the structure of your cover letter to only highlight certain experiences or skills in each paragraph. For example, the cover letter could be sectioned by each job experience. This would allow for easier identification to skills learned in each job. Another suggestion would be to address the person that will read your cover letter. Even if the reader of your cover letter is unknown, addressing them as the hiring manager such as “Amazon Hiring Manager” would be an option.
Resume
The resume is clearly sectioned with a title and a line across the page. The resume also has a relatively consistent format with the company name and job title bolded. A suggestion would be to be consistent in terms of where the date of each experience is placed. For work experience, it was placed on the right, however, in the academic projects and education section it was placed in the left. For the company “Shanghai Reiscontrol Management Consulting Co, Ltd.”, it should not be fully capitalized as other work experiences are not fully capitalized. Furthermore, for “BDO CHINA CPAS LLP”, consider using a larger font size to match with other work experiences.
Reference Letters
The reference letters are correctly formatted and uses as formal and professional tone. Your letters also clearly explained your purpose and how your prior experience would contribute to your current job application. In addition, mentioning specific skills is good as it gives references a guidance on skills that could be mentioned. A suggestion would be to include your contact email in the letter. Furthermore, your contact information should be placed at the top as the information at the bottom of the page is easily neglected especially when there is space between your letter content in your contact information.
Job Posting
The job posting is included, however an MLA citation is needed to showcase the source of the job posting.
Grammar / Writing Style
There were no grammatical errors in the resume or reference request letters. However, there were a few grammatical errors in the cover letter:
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- Your major as a “computing science student” but in the resume it was mentioned as “computer science” . Perhaps consider a consistent term through out the application package.
- “Please consider my opportunity” could be changed to “Please consider my application”
- “Contribute the team” could be changed to “contribute to the team”
- “which helps me automatically handle” change to which helps to me automatically handle
In terms of the writing style, the application package has kept a professional and formal tone throughout. However, there needs to be more consistency with writing in past tense. As most of your job descriptions were in the past, it needs to be written in past tense. There were one or two instances in your cover letter and resume that may need editing. An example would be in the second paragraph of your cover letter, you mentioned learning web development techniques and you followed the sentence with “which helps me automatically handle”. It would be better to change it to “helped”.
Conclusion
Overall, you had many great experiences and many achievements! Your application package draft is well written and completed with most aspects. With some changes to your resume format, organization of your cover letter and some grammatical errors, your application package will be further improved.
Link to Jojo’s Application Package: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2019wa/2019/12/12/application-package-draft-6/
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