Week 2 – Assignment
· Due Monday by 11:59pm
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· Points 10
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· Submitting an external tool
Career Services
[WLO: 4] [CLOs: 1, 5]
Prior to beginning work on this assignment,
· Watch the Selling Yourself in Your Cover Letter (Links to an external site.)
· Watch the This Cover Letter Trick Will Make Hiring Managers Read to the End (Links to an external site.)
· Watch the Resume Basics (Links to an external site.)
· Watch the How to Write a Resume that Beats the Automated Tracking System (Links to an external site.)
Preparing a cover letter and resume that will lead to an interview requires careful analysis of a specific job description. In this assignment, you will use the University of Arizona Global Campus Career Services Job Boards & Niche Job Boards Download Job Boards & Niche Job Boardsresource to find reputable and niche-focused job boards. First, search for and find a job description for a position that interests you in the health care administration field. Health care administration job boards are listed under the Health, Human Services, & Science section of the webpage. Try searching by industry, position title, or specific skills or qualifications. Review the Best Keywords to Use in Your Job Search (Links to an external site.) page for hints on search practices.
Once you have identified a specific job description, complete Parts A, B and C listed below. You will submit a single Word document to Waypoint for this assignment.
The order of your submission should be:
· Job description
· Cover letter
· Original resume
· A screenshot of one of the Jobscan reports generated
· Revised resume
· Reflection questions
Part A: Cover Letter
Health care administration is a competitive field—a well-crafted cover letter makes a compelling argument for why you are the best candidate for the position. A cover letter is generally three to four paragraphs long and should be optimized for the position you are seeking. Some employers use your cover letter to assess your ability to write with clarity and free from grammatical and spelling errors. Using your resume and chosen job description, craft an optimized cover letter that includes relevant skills, education, experience, and career passions.
To complete Part A, follow these steps:
1. Review your chosen job description. Take note of required skills, qualifications, and responsibilities. Also familiarize yourself with the company mission, purpose, or goal. This information can give you valuable insight into company culture—is the company a Fortune 500 corporation that places emphasis on formal communication? Or are you applying for a position at a family health center with a diverse hiring team? These details should influence how you craft and optimize your cover letter.
2. Brainstorm and write down any skills or qualifications you possess that align with the job description. As was the case with your resume, you may find some skills or qualifications listed with similar terms. Whenever possible, use the same term as is listed in the job description.
3. Research the company, organization, or hiring manager. Depending on the size of the company or industry, this can range from easy to somewhat difficult. For tips on how to research organizational culture and operations, review the article The Complete Guide to Researching a Company (Links to an external site.). As you conduct your research, make notes about the organization’s business model, intended customers or services provided, current news or announcements, and any staff or executives you can research or connect with on LinkedIn.
4. Choose three to four skills or qualifications to emphasize in your cover letter. Now that you have done some research, you should have a clear idea of which skills will most captivate a hiring manager at your target company or organization. Be sure to include those skills as selling points in your letter.
5. Craft your cover letter. Review the Sample Cover Letter for HCA460 Download Sample Cover Letter for HCA460document for instructions on proper formatting. Each time you mention a skill, qualification, or competency, you should provide a specific example of how you developed, refined, or used that specific skill, qualification, or competency.
Part B: Resume and Jobscan
After you have identified a specific job description and crafted your cover letter, you will need to optimize your resume for applying to that position.
To complete Part B, follow these steps:
6. Revise your resume to better align with the job description. This could include improving bullet points to better reflect the job requirements, or rephrasing skills and qualifications to better reflect those listed in the job description (For instance: You might change the word ‘supervised’ to ‘managed’ to better address that requested qualification). Be honest as you optimize your resume but be certain to use the language in the job description wherever possible. For help listing transferable skills, review this article: The Ultimate Transferrable Skills List for Your Resume (Links to an external site.).
7. Use Jobscan to compare your resume to the job description. As a University of Arizona Global Campus student and future alum, you have access to Jobscan, a web-based tool that provides instant feedback on how closely your resume matches a specific job description. Access Jobscan by viewing the Optimize a Resume With Jobscan (Links to an external site.) To generate an analysis, paste the contents of your resume and the job description into the Jobscan tool fields
Note: Make sure you take a screenshot of each Jobscan report you run and save the report(s) in a Word file. You are required to submit at least one Jobscan report with your cover letter and resume.
8. Explore your Jobscan analysis and make substantive changes. Explore your report and make the suggested changes. This could include modifying keyword choices, improving bullet points and quantifiable outcomes, and making changes to layout or section headings.
· For additional assistance, review the Sample Jobscan Report Download Sample Jobscan Reportdocument.
9. Generate another Jobscan report with your optimized revised resume. Take note of whether your resume more closely aligned with the job description after making the changes suggested by Jobscan. Also, take note of any required skills or qualifications you do not possess. Did your percentage of alignment increase? If so, by how much?
Note: Jobscan currently allows for two resume scans. Contact Career Services (Links to an external site.) if you need additional scans.
Part C: Reflection Questions
Discuss the following questions, reflecting on the changes you made to your resume after using Jobscan:
· Did you need to alter or add keywords to align your resume with the job description?
· What changes did you make and why?
· Which skills and/or experience do you currently posses that match the requested qualifications?
· Which skills and/or experience do you not posses that are included in the job description?
· Do you feel you qualify for this position? If so, why? If not, what qualifications are you missing?
Reminder: You will submit a single Word document to Waypoint for this assignment.
The order of your submission should be:
· Job description
· Cover letter
· Original resume
· A screenshot of one of the Jobscan reports generated
· Revised resume
· Reflection questions
Please use Level 1 Headings for each section. Visit the Introduction to APA (Links to an external site.) page in the Writing Center for more information.
Assignment Requirements:
The Career Services assignment, once completed,
· Must have substantive responses that address the assignment requirements and include complete sentences in paragraph format.
· Must be six to 10 double-spaced pages in length, not including the title page.
· Must include a separate title page with the following:
· Title of paper
· Student’s name
· Course name and number
· Instructor’s name
· Date submitted
· Must include the following:
· Job description
· Cover letter
· Original resume
· Screenshot of Jobscan report
· Revised resume
· Reflection questions
Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment
