The Quick Resume and Cover Letter Book

Title: The Quick Resume and Cover Letter Book
Author: Michael Farr
Publisher: JIST Publishing; 4 edition (November 2007)
ISBN-10: 1593575173
ISBN-13: 978-1593575175
My Rating - 5 out of 5

Farr’s Resume Strategy is #1!

Out of all the resume books I’ve read, this one was the most helpful in terms of advise, information, creative ideas and sample resumes. After not only reading but using this book, one can definitely agree with Bill Warren (Executive Director, DirectEmployers Association, founder and former president of Monster.com), when he comments, “This book is proof that Mike Farr is America’s number-one career planning and job search expert.” Farr’s 25 years of studying, teaching and writing about job seeking skills are clearly seen and shared throughout this book.

Termed The Quick Resume & Cover Letter Book, it certainly lives up to its name, but it is also much more than just a quick reference manual. It covers different types of resumes and discusses them in detail - the chronological resume, the skills or functional resume and the combination and creative resumes.

There are plenty of worksheets to fill in which will assist you in writing your professional resume. You will also learn how to construct an electronic Internet resume. Interspersed throughout the reading are helpful facts about resumes you may not have known and myths about them that you thought were true.

Career planning advice, cover letter advice and 90 sample resumes written by professional writers are literally at your fingertips. Included also are up-to-date job searching tips, along with the 7 steps to getting a good job fast.

After completing the easy-to-follow instructions and worksheets in Part 1, you will have learned how to write an effective resume in just 1 day. As you progress to the other parts of the book, you will be able to refine your resume while you have already begun your job search.

Farr adds doses of humor as well, in relating job hunters “creative” resumes and the “interesting” manner in which they were sent to prospective employers. Added, of course, is the cautionary “don’t try this at home” adage.

There are a plethora of quick tips infused into the helpful text on almost every page. These will help you to further polish your resume and subsequent cover letter.

Part 2 covers A More Thorough Approach to Resume Writing and Career Planning, by assisting you in developing a powerful new skills language. Also, Learn to Identify Your Perfect Job and Industry, Highlight Your Strengths and Overcome “Problems” on Your Resume.

Part 3 offers, as Farr titles it, A Stupendous Collection of Professionally Written and Designed Resumes. It is appropriately titled, believe me.

An abundance of extras, such as cover letters, thank you notes, JIST cards (very interesting!) and other job search correspondences complete the two chapters of Part 4.
Don’t skip over the JIST card section, you’ll love it.

What it takes to Get a Good Job in Less Time and Quick Tips for Using the Internet in Your Job Search are discussed in Part 5 of the book.

The two appendixes which round out the entire masterpiece are: Sample Job Descriptions from the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) and How To Contact the Professional Resume Writers Who Contributed to This Book.

The Quick Resume & Cover Letter Book promises to aid you “get over the resume hurdle, get a resume done quickly, and go about the more important task of getting a job.”

You’ll never need another resume book if you apply all that is offered to you in this one, regardless of the other 700 + resume books listed on Amazon. Everything you need is contained within its pages. It is definitely a book that anyone looking for a job or career should have at their disposal. I personally went through the worksheets and refined my resume and was amazed at the end results. Now it even looks much neater in electronic form.

Farr has written other career books also, which are available at Amazon.