To: Cheryl Chao
From: Jojo (Syau-jing) Huang
Subject: Peer review of application package draft
Date: December 16, 2019
Hi Cheryl, thank you for submitting your application package draft, please see a list of comments about your package:
Job Posting
The job posting is included correctly with the proper format of citation. Meanwhile, since the job posting comes from a website that is subject to change, adding an access date in the reference part might make it more reliable.
Cover Letter
Structure
Each part of the letter is concise and tidy. The beginning briefly introduces the purpose and background of the applicant, while the three paragraphs of examples help to provides more detail insight of the applicant. Besides, the friendly ending also shows the applicant’s strong willing for the job position. Overall the letter is well-structured.
Content
The main contents of the letter contain 3 concrete and well-design examples based on the applicant’s work experience and volunteer experience, all of which demonstrate applicant’s social skills related to children’s care and education and target for the job position as an elementary tutor. Meanwhile, adding a sentence to conclude the skills and characteristics of the applicant for each example might also help to make the content clearer and eye-catching, especially for those recruiters with a large volume of job applications.
Grammar and Typo
Overall the grammar of this letter is excellent, while there are a few minor issues. One main grammar issue is about the multiple-word adjective. Basically, adding a dash between every single word in a multiple-word adjective may be a good practice. For example, in the first paragraph “one year program” might need to be changed to “one-year program”, while in the third paragraph, “after school care” might be changed to “after-school care”. Besides, there might be a small typo in the sentence “methods of communication that is …” of the third paragraph, in which changing “is” to “are” might match better with the plural syntax of “methods”.
Resume
Structure
The education, work experience, and skills are clearly listed as three different sections, and the items of each section are either listed as subsection or as a bullet item, which helps the recruiters grasp necessary information easily. Overall the structure of the resume is neat and tidy, no editing is suggested for this part.
Content
The education and skills sections briefly show the background of the applicant, while the working experience section demonstrates the applicant’s skills with detail examples. All of them are concisely targeted for the job position as an elementary tutor. At the same time, adding more detail information about the applicant’s academic experience, such as the core courses, the award, and scholarship, can make the applicant more competitive.
Grammar and Typo
Overall the grammar in the resume is awesome, while there are a few minor typos. For example, in the 5thbullet point of Jericho Kids Club, ”maintain clean and safe environment” may be changed to “maintain a clean and safe environment”. And in the 4th bullet point of Behaviour Interventionist, “ensure techniques used …” may be changed to “ensure the techniques used …”. Besides, in the education of UBC, there are two spaces after the year 2020, while changing it to one space may help to ensure consistency among other sections.
Reference Requests
Structure
The three reference request letters follow a consistent structure with three main paragraphs. The first paragraphs are brief introductions that state the purpose of requesting references, and the second paragraphs always describe or remind the recipient with their previous relationship about working and volunteering, both of which provide recipient enough context about the reference request. At the same time, the friendly ending in the last paragraph always make the recipient willing to help. Overall, all of the three letters are well-structured, and no editing is suggested for this part.
Content
Each of the three reference request letters not only provides enough background about the positive connection between the sender and the recipient but also describes the relationship between the target job position and their previous experience, which help the referrer (recipient) complete the reference letter more easily. Besides, those letters also describe the sender’s career goal and the importance of the target job position to the career goal, which makes them much more persuasive to the recipient. Overall, the contents of the reference request letters are all well-designed, and no editing is suggested for this part.
Grammar and Typo
Overall the grammar of the three references is good, while there are some minor issues or typos in those three letters. Besides the same multiple-word adjective issue described in the same section of cover letter (e.g. “problem-solving abilities”), the word “english” appears in all of the three letters might be changed to “English”. Besides, missing the dot after “Ms” of “Dear Ms Pun” in the first letter might be a typo.
Overall, every component in this application package draft is well written. In spite of a few minor grammar issues and typos, all of them have awesome structures and concise contents. At the same time, some small suggestions, such as adding a conclusion for each example in the cover letter and add more details about academic experience in the resume is provided, and I hope they can help improve the package. Your questions about the review comments are very welcome, please feel free to contact me at xiaojing@alumni.ubc.ca.
Link to Cheryl’s application package: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2019wa/2019/12/12/application-package-draft-3/
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