The following text was written in August 2018. It was a time in my life where I felt like I was in a rut and having a space visualize everything I was thinking helped motivate me to keep moving forward.
Looking for jobs as a university graduate is hard work. It’s like I’ve been doing all these things up until now to add to and embellish my resume, but now that I’ve reached this point, I’m stuck. It’s crazy because as a new graduate, I’m supposed to have a sea of opportunities, which I guess I do have. But it’s not just like jobs are coming to me left and right and I get to pick and choose as I please... I have to put my own work in which begins with a resume. Assembling a resume is no small feat. It takes time and care to craft the perfect bullet points to summarize what an amazing worker you are and could be -- not to mention the meticulous minutes spent making sure all the sizing and formatting looks pristine. But once that resume is done, you can’t just call it a day. I mean you can... but man have you got work to do. The resume is just the first step. The little block that once you step onto it, you realize there’s a whole lot more that must be done. And yes, I am talking about the dreaded cover letter.
Now not all positions may require a cover letter, but I have to have one ready to go if I find a job that does ask for one. And I’m the kind of person (perfectionist some might say) that wants everything to look perfect before moving onto the next step. And I find that I can’t get myself to seriously search for jobs until I have finished what I call my “cover letter template.” This template is currently a mess. I’ve given it to a couple friends and peers for feedback and they’ve all sent it back with the same message -- you can’t just restate your entire resume all over again. And they’re right. I can’t just taking those carefully crafted resume bullet points and simply turn them into sentences for my cover letter even though that is soooo easy and what I’d rather do. A cover letter is supposed to showcase my skills and talents and things that can’t be determined through a few summarized bullet points. I’m supposed to sell myself. Convince whatever company it is --- why they would benefit from hiring me. And that is hard. Looking internally and writing about yourself is hard. So that’s why as of right now, this very moment, instead of working on my cover letter, I’m sitting here ranting about how much I don’t want to do it.
But this is how I work. Whenever I find myself with writer’s block or really any type of productie block, I find it best to sit down and just write what I’m feeling. Write down my insecurities and whatever thoughts I have hiding in my head that I’m too afraid to say out loud -- it helps to visualize what I’m really dealing with. It gives me something tangible to refer to.
Now this is the moment I tell myself I need to work on my cover letter... the same thing I’ve been telling myself for the past 2 weeks. So I will. I will continue to work on my cover letter. I will put in more than just a weak 10 minutes a day. I will craft a cover letter that is a reflection of myself, my work habits, my values. And I just need to remember that this isn’t the final product. I’m still working towards that. I just need to get a move on and finish this draft. So thank you, blog, for giving me a space to convince myself to get moving.
See, that’s the beauty of a blog, or journal, or any other outlet where someone can get everything inside of them... out. Because once it’s out, once it’s articulated, it becomes more real and tangible. And it’s just one step closer to the end goal.
Em Truong
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