4:1 Peer Review of Application Package

From: Ayazhan Makhambetova

To: Kaylee Jeong, ENGL301 Team MARKsmen member

Date: March 28, 2019, ENGL301 Team MARKsmen member

Subject: Application Package Rough Draft Peer Review

Peer Review

Dear Kaylee, I have read your application package and it is very well organized. You resume, cover letter, and the letters of recommendation are very professional and impressive, and I believe that you can get the position. Here are some of my suggestions so you can improve your application package.

Resume

Your resume is clean and nicely put together, following the guidelines from the textbook. Although, the content within the resume all together seems great, the length of the document is too long. Consider keeping the length to one page if possible.

1. Organization
   • Your organization is clean and well put together. However, you could add a field to emphasize your personal projects or academic projects, to illustrate your practical experience.
   • Your academic, work and volunteering history is very well pronounced within the resume, consider condensing these items and add a separate field for computing languages, software & tools you have used, to highlight your capability.
2. Content
   • As stated before, your content is very lean and well put together. However, your resume seems to have many items that have less relevance to a technology job. It would be wise to condensing these items.
   • Consider expanding on your programming work or projects you have taken apart of, since many software companies run a keyword search algorithm on resumes.
3. Layout
   • The layout of your resume is clean and concise, I enjoyed reading it very much. I would however consider try to keep paragraph spacing to a smaller amount. Although the sentences are easier to read, it keeps the paragraph sparse.
4. Writing & Grammar
   • Your grammar, and writing style are perfect for a resume, I have no further recommendations.

Cover Letter

Your cover letter has many career wise aspects that are incredibly impressive. Albeit professional, your cover letter seems to stray away from technology related introductions. I would consider retooling your cover letter to focus on the technological skills side to convey your interests at Amazon for a software developer role.

1. Organization
   • Your organization is clean and well put, very well done!
2. Content
   • As mentioned before, the content needs to be retooled. Perhaps focus more on your experience with object-orientated programming and data structures that you have mentioned.
3. Layout
   • The layout of the cover letter is standard and very well put together. I had no trouble reading your cover letter.
4. Writing & Grammar
   1. First sentence of the second paragraph, “Currently … Columbia”. Please consider writing “Currently, I am in the process of completing my third year of the Integrated Computer Science program at the University of British Columbia.”
   2. Second sentence of the last paragraph, “I am enthusiastic… technology.” Please consider changing it to “I look forward to bringing passion, and commitment to my role at Amazon, the leading innovative company in the technology space.”

Letters of Recommendation Request

Your letters of recommendations are superb! I have only a few suggestions. Please consider the following.

1. Organization
   • Your letters of recommendations are organized very nicely. I had no trouble reading through it, and the separation between content and contact info is done very well.
2. Content
   • Consider diversifying your reference list, in terms of whom you are asking reference letters from. It seems like you have enlisted work or volunteering supervisors for your reference letter recipients. Perhaps enlist a couple of professors or group project members who can assess your technical and academical skills.
3. Layout
   • Amazing, perfect.
4. Writing & Grammar
   • Nothing to fix, everything looks great.

Conclusion

Overall, I have really enjoyed reading your application package draft. You have chosen the correct types of organization and design of your resume and cover letter. I would only suggest adding to your content, to emphasize on you hard skills. Please let me know if you have any further questions, otherwise, Great Job!