TO: Cynthia Zheng, Team Victory Lap Member
FROM: Brent Hanover, Team Victory Lap Member
DATE: March 28, 2019
SUBJECT: Peer Review for Application Package Draft
Hi Cynthia,
I reviewed your application package for the co-op position at Amazon, great work! I particularly liked the clear and concise writing style – no sentences or bullet points are needlessly verbose. I do have some comments which I believe will help lend better readability and credibility.
First Impressions:
- Information is presented clearly and does not appear to have long sentences that make it difficult to glean information.
- The cover letter section should come before the resume, as per the assignment instructions.
- Although the header chosen is appropriate for the resume, it doesn’t seem to be appropriate to have the UBC co-op header on the request for reference letters.
Title Page:
- All of the information is relayed clearly and effectively, nice work.
Co-op Position Advertisement
- The formatting of this section looks good and the source formatting was kept when copied over
- There is no MLA citation for the internship advertisement which must be included.
Resume:
- Good work on having kept a one page resume; a shorter resume is almost always better.
- Having headers that are close in size, font, and style to the sub-headers can make it difficult to differentiate sections of the resume. Try reformatting the “Skills”, “Technical Experience”, and the rest of the headers so they can be more easily differentiated from the headers for individual work experiences and projects, or vice-versa.
- Including an “Objective” or “Summary” section at the top of the resume is generally considered optional, but would be good to directly tell the hiring manager who you are and what your objective is instead of them trying to glean it from the resume.
- The bullet points are short, to the point, and quickly deliver the information, which is much better than having long sentences in each one.
- The “Easy-Trip Travel Application” has one bullet point with three sentences, and takes up three lines. Bullet points should not exceed one sentence; reformatting that piece of text into three bullet points will help with readability by putting the points into discrete sections. This can be said for the work experience sections as well.
- Work experience should be listed preferentially in reverse chronological order (most recent work experience first) and, in cases of overlapping jobs, the order should be based off of the end date. Following this format, the work experience should be listed “Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library”, “Fudan-Princeton-Tokyo Annual Joint Conference”, then “Princeton University”.
- For a more succinct resume, it may be wise to combine two small sections. There is only one bullet point under “Interests” which could be put inside “Skills” instead, as being fluent in non-English languages is certainly considered a skill.
Cover Letter:
- The phrase “I have been thrilled to work at Amazon” implies that you have worked at Amazon, but the resume does not reflect this. Try rephrasing that clause for better clarity.
- Writing using phrases such as “thrilled to work” or “would dream of” implies that the writer is very interested in the position, but is not explaining why the company should hire them. Try rephrasing these so that instead of seeming like you are just wishing for the job, you are explaining to Amazon’s hiring manager why you would create value for their company.
- How the third paragraph is worded is an excellent way to show that non-software-related work experience will make you a better Amazon employee.
- The signoff “Sincerely yours” implies that there is a personal attachment or connection, but the letter is address “To whom it may concern”, which implies that the writer is not familiar with the reader. Consider removing the word “yours” for a more consistent tone.
Reference Letters:
- These letters are well written and get the point across clearly and quickly without spending too much time on exposition, great work!
- Slang like “hard-core” should be avoided if possible when writing a professional letter unless it’s a phrase that has a specific meaning to the reader.
- Ensure that verbs are in the past tense when speaking about events that happened in the past. “Have benefited” should just be “benefited”, and “lays” should be “laid”.
- Using the phrase “[a]s you may know” twice in rapid succession makes the letter sound repetitive. Replacing one instance with a different phrase would create a letter with better readability.
Grammar and Expression:
- In the request for reference letters in the last paragraph, the first sentence should read “…I would truly appreciate [it].”.
- In that same paragraph, consider using the oxford comma for clarity between “cover letter” and “and resume”.
- The clause “slightly different from the U.S.” doesn’t quite work where it is inserted in the request for reference letters.
- There is a spelling error in the first paragraph of the first reference letter – “puisuit” should be “pursuit”.
- The expression in these documents is positive, optimistic, and succinct, good work!
Overall your application package is very strong and the documents show that you meet the criteria for the position. Incorporating the advice described above will take an already strong application and make it even stronger. If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to me at brenthanover@gmail.com.
Regards,
Brent Hanover
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