In addition to adding current accomplishments to your resume, be sure to keep your Skills section up to date. Why? The skills section is The Resume Section That Matters More Than You’d Think. It translates the things that you can do into the language of your field, making what you know how to do relevant for the positions you apply for. You may want to tweak the skills section for every job you apply for in order to echo information from the job posting and what you know about the company or organization.

So how do you write a great Skills section? You can begin with the Muse article The Resume Section That Matters More Than You’d Think, which outlines three steps to follow as you polish your resume. Next, watch How to Showcase the Skills an Employer Wants (3m11s) from the Lynda.com course Writing a Resume Layout, which addresses how to make your experience relevant to the workplace.

Finally, you might check out the Lynda.com course Designing a Resume, which demonstrates how to use design features to create a resume that is modern, traditional, or artistic. Finally, if you’re a military veteran preparing to enter the civilian workforce, find tips in the Lynda.com video The resume and cover letter from the course Translating Your Military Skills to Civilian Workplace.

Photo Credit: Application – pen2 by Flazingo Photos on Flickr, used under a CC-BY-SA license.

Most of the time, the letters you write will be formal letters. You will use letters for things such as job applications, official requests to someone inside or outside your organization, documentation of complaints and reprimands, and recognition of special achievements. Here are some more specific examples that you are likely to see early in your career:

• cover letters that are part of a job application packet.
• thank you letters to those who are part of your job search (e.g., interviewers, HR staff, those who write recommendations).
• recommendation letters for those you work with.
• cover letters (or transmittal letters) that accompany reports and proposals.

In all these cases, you will want a formal letter. You may occasionally write informal letters in the workplace, but it’s typical for informal correspondence to be handled in email messages.

To learn more about formal letters, watch this short video from Rasmussen College to find out “How to Write a Formal Letter” (3m49s):

You also need to know about how to write external progress reports, which will go to clients or stakeholders outside your organization. While the general purpose is the same as that for an internal progess report, the audience is quite different.

The Lynda.com video Using in-progress reports to communicate with clients (4m 23s) will walk you through the key features and the important characteristics of this kind of progress report.