{"id":20054,"date":"2017-10-02T14:38:52","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T19:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/pipercenter\/?page_id=20054"},"modified":"2024-07-29T11:41:25","modified_gmt":"2024-07-29T16:41:25","slug":"how-do-you-review-a-job-description-to-prepare-for-writing-a-cover-letter","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/pipercenter\/how-to-guides\/cover-letter-guide-2\/how-do-you-review-a-job-description-to-prepare-for-writing-a-cover-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you review a job description to prepare for writing a cover letter?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-modular-content-collection><h3>To write a good cover letter, you need to spend time<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Reviewing the job description, and<\/li>\n<li>Matching it to your skills and experience<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The more you practice tailoring cover letters to fit job descriptions, the better you will become at analyzing possible roles (is this job right for you?) and preparing for interviews.<\/p>\n<h3>Follow the steps below to tailor your cover letter to the job description:<\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li>Print out the job description.<\/li>\n<li>Read the description through from beginning to end<\/li>\n<li>Reread the description, this time focusing on the role (rather than the skills)<\/li>\n<li>Underline key words or phrases and write down answers to these questions:<br \/>\n\u2014 What will the person in the role be doing?<br \/>\n\u2014 What experiences have you had that have prepared you for the role?<\/li>\n<li>Next, focus on the <strong>skills<\/strong> required<\/li>\n<li>Underline key words or phrases and write down answers to these questions:<br \/>\n\u2014 What skills are required?<br \/>\n\u2014 What skills do you have?<br \/>\n\u2014 What have you done that shows that you have the skills?<br \/>\n\u2014 What technical skills are required?<\/li>\n<li>Outline the order in which you plan to address the requirements of the job description<br \/>\n\u2014 Follow the order in the job description (requirements are listed from most to least important)<\/li>\n<li>Finally, review the job description and your lists to determine whether you are missing any experiences or skills<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h6>Note<\/h6>\n<p>No one has all of the experiences or skills required for a job. Applicants handle this mismatch by focusing on experiences or skills that they do have and that are <strong>transferable<\/strong> from one context to another.<\/p>\n<p>You are now ready to write a great cover letter that will be tailored to the role!<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"cta\" href=\"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/pipercenter\/how-to-guides\/cover-letter-guide\/how-do-you-organize-your-cover-letter\/\">How do you organize your cover letter?<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- begin-migrated-from-panel-builder --><!-- end-migrated-from-panel-builder --><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To write a good cover letter, you need to spend time Reviewing the job description, and Matching it to your skills and experience The more you practice tailoring cover letters [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8275,"featured_media":0,"parent":17163,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-20054","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/pipercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/pipercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/pipercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/pipercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/pipercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20054"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/pipercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41114,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/pipercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20054\/revisions\/41114"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/pipercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/pipercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}