Thursday, September 26, 2013

Career advice

A young friend writes this letter and asks me to forward it to potential firms in the field.

Subject: Recent [name of undergrad school]/[name of grad school] grad interested in health jobs

Having recently completed a Master of Science in Public Health degree from [name of school], I am now looking for job opportunities in innovation in health sciences. I have experience in both qualitative and quantitative analysis, using software such as STATA and atlas.ti. I also hold a bachelor's degree from [name of school].

As we discussed, I am attaching my CV for your review.
 
A friend who heads up a company responds after I do so:

Thank you Paul. It makes me nervous when people are so proud of their universities. My father used to say the people who are the most worthy of their credentials rarely mention them. 

A word to the wise: Spend time in your cover letter explaining what you care about and what you'd like to learn more about, not relying on credentials.

2 comments:

Nne said...

Hi Paul,

Do you only provide advise for CV's?

Paul Levy said...

What's your question?