# CVs and cover letters  --- ## What is a CV? - Roughly translates to "the course of my life" *Latin* - A written overview of your skills, education, and work experience *Reed* - Your 7-second foot in the door *Glassdoor* ---- ### How to write a CV - **Keep it to one page** - Keep it simple - you want both tech and non-tech people to understand it - Keep it relevant - if they only pick out ten words at random, they should still have a good sense that you're worth interviewing - Preface with two / three lines max that help an employer see your personality (passion and ambition to go with your experience...) ---- ### Bear in mind... - Frame any previous experience in terms of software development (building, learning, prioritising) - Highlight any _relevant_ education and training, and interests / hobbies that would make you a great colleague (e.g. coaching at Codebar) - Refer to everything you do as "developer" first... real world UX, scrum facilitation and QA people typically can't write code. --- ## What is a cover letter? - Additional insights about your motivations and ambitions - More personalised than the CV - The briefer the better ---- ### How to write a cover letter - **Keep it to less than one page** - This should be noticeably relevant to the company and role - Establish your passion, your ambition and your experience, making specific references to technologies and behaviours that they mention in the job description ---- ### Bear in mind - Typically you get a text box into which you should paste your 'cover letter' - I would write max. 2 paragraphs that is more narrative than your CV, use this as a template for all applications - Ideally you can just change a few words to make it feel relevant to any job --- ## A quick note about next week  ---- ### From next week until the end of the course You will be: - In project teams - Looking at jobs - Briefly updating the cohort on progress --- ## Today's fun  ---- - Look at FAC18's CVs - Discuss which bits you like, what you'd do differently - List out your current 'tech stack' ---- - Get on Flow CV and add sections you want to include. You will come back to this over the next several weeks ---- - Imagine an ideal company and role, and write a couple of paragraphs to them explaining why are you the right candidate (this will be your cover letter template) --- ## Cool  --- ## Resources - [FAC18's CVs](https://airtable.com/shrvlwJHDH1Db27bf) - [FlowCV](https://flowcv.io/) - CV builder - [Dan's 14-step plan for writing a CV](https://www.notion.so/14-step-plan-for-writing-a-CV-d9ac73e090b14cd8a1c62cc39a578454)