Cover Letter & Resume

Talk to friends---let them know you are seeking work and let them help you network, and advise you in any way they can.
There may not be someone employed by the library who can help personally, but they will be able to help you locate books about it.

There are a LOT of scams out there with resume writing services. Be cautious. Someone recently contacted me and told me my resume would never get me a new job because it was too long and didn't have the right key words. I've been employed almost a year having used that resume and received 2 offers with it.

Go online and Google "resume example". You'll get a lot of great examples for free.

Go to Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, etc. and see if they can build a resume through one of their tools.

Basically, employers want to see your skills, your accomplishments and your areas of expertise. Bullet points and brevity are most preferred by recruiters, though most companies use automated resume scanners to pick keywords from the resume and push you through.

Cover letters are trickier. They usually need to be customized for a company (or should be). I'd really recommend not using the same one for each position. Again, with the number of candidates most companies are getting, I'd find out if it's worth putting the time into a cover letter (and whether or not they're really read).

When I was a recruiter, I only scanned resumes for key words, and then looked at the tenure.

Good luck!

Someone at the library should be able to help. Use the computer and research resume. Use your state's employment resources program (in Michigan it is called Michigan Works and their staff helps you with the computer, construct a resume, write a cover letter and then allows you to print the resume and cover letter, using their envelopes and stamps. Everything is free. They will even help you look for jobs.) Hope this helps.
V.

Go to your local workforce center...almost all cities have some sort of Govn't agency whose job it is to help you find work. They have job banks, classes on resume writing and counselors who can critique your resume. Try calling/googling the local unemployment office, they're the ones who can point you to the workforce center.

I work at the library and can tell you that yes, we can help - in certain capacities. If you just need occasional help with formatting or finding styles of resumes/cover letters, you should be able to get it done at the library. Just remember to bring a disk or flash drive to save your resume on. If you need someone to give you feedback on how it looks or proofreading it, or just giving an opinion on style, etc, the Workforce Partnership is the place to go. Ours (Johnson County) is located on Quivira, just behind the Best Buy at 95th. They have computers there and will also have all kinds of books, job search info and a free fax for faxing your resume/cover letter. But, they are only open during the week, so you may need to do a combination of working at both places, depending on what you need.

emurse.com is the best, easiest tool I've used. Completely free too!

Are you a college graduate? If so, contact the career center from the school where you attended.

Have you ever made a resume before? I agree that if you're a recent grad you should get help from your career center. Otherwise I think you're best bet is to go online and look...there are a ton of great examples. There are even different sites for different job types. You can find examples of cover letters too but I think a good cover letter not only tells about why you're qualified for the job, but a little about you and why you personally are good for it, not just your work history. Make it personal. After you do that, maybe find a friend who is good at writing or has expereince with resumes and get their input. Happy hunting!!