How to Write a Better Resume + Cover Letter: A Step-by-Step Course
A 14-part course that will land you the interview
Hello! And welcome. We’re excited for you and what’s to come — a new job! And all the good things a new job can bring: higher salaries, bigger benefits, more impact, interesting experiences, a better boss. In this course, you’ll be creating the two documents you need to make that change: your resume and cover letter.
We’ve been on both sides of the cover letter and resume. Andy hired the 400+ editorial team at Groupon during its hyper-growth phase. Emma was on hiring teams at zulily as it shot from 100 to 1,000 employees. Together, we spent six months building a 30+ person team at an internet startup that was then acquired for $70M.
We’ve also doubled our salaries by leaving jobs and getting new ones. We've ditched stunted career paths and said good riddance to toxic managers. We are both big advocates of finding jobs that work for us. We want that for everyone.
There are plenty of barriers that stop us all from getting these jobs. The challenge of putting together a cover letter and resume should not be one of them.
We say that knowing full well that it's a bunk system. Having to demonstrate your abilities through two incredibly specific genres of writing is like having an essay contest to determine the winner of a trout fishing competition. Sadly, it's the system we have. Thankfully, anyone can learn how to write compelling, concrete, human documents that will win you interviews.
We're here to teach you everything we know, step by step.
Quick Start Guide
Course Intro
What to Expect
Prep-Work 1: Find Your Why
Worksheet: Find Your Why
Prep-Work 2: Mine the Job Description
Worksheet: Mine the Job Description
What's the Point of a Resume?
Frequently Asked Questions
What to Expect
Make a Shitty First Draft
Worksheet: Make a Shitty First Draft
What to Expect
PARsify Your Resume Bullets
Worksheet: PARsify Your Resume Bullets
Breakout Exercise: Know Your Numbers
Breakout Exercise: Power Verbs
What to Expect
Adding the "So What?"
Worksheet: Adding the "So What?"
What to Expect
Pick Your Resume Template
Score Your Resume
Worksheet: Score Your Resume
*Bonus* Breakout Exercise: Update Your LinkedIn Profile
What Makes a Great Cover Letter?
Frequently Asked Questions
The Salutation
The Rest of the Paragraph
Worksheet: Paragraph 1
The Body Paragraphs
Worksheet: Body Paragraphs
Last Paragraph
Worksheet: Last Paragraph
Worksheet: Your Complete Cover Letter
Score Your Cover Letter
Worksheet: Score Your Cover Letter
Congratulations!
*Bonus* Worksheet: Job Application Tracker
It's for anyone who has ever said "ugh!" at the idea of updating a resume or writing a new cover letter.
It’s for anyone who’s felt completely overwhelmed because two PDFs hold the fate of their future.
It's for anyone who wants a phone screen, who’s skipped writing that cover letter, who’s staying in a job they don’t want, who’s tired and wants some structure to keep them accountable.
Whether you’ve never written a cover letter or a resume and don’t know where or how to start, or you’ve written lots of them and don’t like the results, this course is for you.
We’ll be honest: it’s not easy. If you’re looking for a magic spell to cast on a pre-existing draft to make it shiny enough to send tonight, this is not the course for you. If you find that course, please let us know. We’d like to take it.
It takes about 15–20 hours to complete the whole thing, including the worksheets and breakout sessions. At the end of that, you’ll be ready to hit send on a job application with your fresh cover letter and resume.
The course is self-paced and you'll have unlimited access forever. You can tackle those 15 hours in a single weekend, or in 10-minute increments over the next 90 days — the choice is yours!
Absolutely. The hardest part of getting a new job is being brave enough to go for it. Part of that bravery comes from knowing how to put together an authentic, persuasive cover letter and resume packet that will earn you a call from the recruiter.
We put this course together because so many of our newsletter subscribers write to us asking if they should quit. Those newsletters are our most forwarded, most engaged, most everything. So many people want a new job, but aren’t going for it. We don’t want you to feel stuck a day longer.
If you don’t get a new job using your new resume and cover letter, reach out to us at [email protected]. We’d love to figure out what the issue is and help you work around it. We want you to get that job and are confident this will help.
Not at all! We’ve got templates galore with sentence starters and prompts. Some thoughtfulness is certainly required, but the entire point of our course is that you know exactly what to write in every part of your resume and in every sentence of your cover letter. Our no-fail formulas are easy to implement and don’t require any talent.
It's a lot of fun. We have a lot of laughs. We're serious about the outcome, but we don't take the process too seriously. We remind you to take a lot of breaks, get a lot of snacks, work together with a friend. We're there in videos every step of the way. We use phenomenal metaphors. And, then there are the easy-to-use templates full of prompts and sentence starters so you're never staring at a blank page.
Plus, you'll get advice on how to update your LinkedIn, a job application tracker, and straight-talk answers to tough questions like, "Do I have to write a cover letter?"
If you want more help, we're here for you! You have a few options.
Feedback Package: Add a one-time round of personalized feedback and edit suggestions for that extra set of eyes (actually two sets of eyes...). Pay-what-you-can pricing, so don't let $$ stop you!
New Job Package: A monthly subscription plan that includes unlimited personalized feedback and edit suggestions on every cover letter and resume you write. Plus, pep talks on demand! And don't let $$ stop you: We'll work out a price point together that'll make the investment possible for you.
To set either of these options up, just send us an email at [email protected].
We're confident that what we cover here will help you get a new job. When we were at our most miserable jobs, if someone told us, "For $100 you could change that!" we would do it. (Andy has spent wayyyyyy more than that on weeks-long vacations hoping that would be enough.)
If you're unhappy with the course or your situation has changed, shoot us an email: [email protected]. We'll work it out.
Just a computer and internet access. Heads-up: our worksheets are all hosted on Google Docs, which means you'll need a Google account to access them. Google accounts are free and compatible with any existing non-Gmail email address.
Our course is self-paced, and you'll have access to it forever.