 Lecture 3, As-Salaam-Alaikum. Welcome to the Virgil University's course on Business and Technical Communication. In today's lecture, we will look at reader-centered writing. We are going to talk about what it means to be reader-centered, basically how to keep your reader in mind when you are writing something. Primarily in today's lecture, we will look at how to write resumes. Within that, we will talk about how you will define your objectives in a resume, how you will plan, draft, evaluate and revise a resume, so that it is absolutely reader-centered and it attracts the reader to you. When we talk of defining the objectives, basically the first activity of writing and defining your objectives is important because whether you are writing a letter or an application or whatever it is that you are writing, you need to have in mind your objectives. Specifically, when you are writing a resume, it is important that you know your objective, you know what job you are applying for, what you want to achieve out of it and what your employer is going to gain out of you by hiring you. So you have to have all those things in mind and that is when you can actually start writing a good resume. When defining your objectives, you basically tell what your communication will do or what you want your communication to do and so therefore your objectives form the basis of all the work that you are doing, all the writing that you are doing will be based on the objectives that you would have defined for yourself initially. To take the reader-centered approach, you need to look at three things. The first is the final result that you desire. What is it that you want from this communication? What outcome are you looking for? It is important so that when you know what result you are looking for, then your approach will be re-descented. Secondly, who are the people who will read your communication? Thirdly, the specific way you want your communication to affect the people as they read your communication. What is the impact of that communication on the reader? So these are the final results. For example, if you are in a resume, then the final result is that you want your communication to be re-descented. You want your communication to be re-descented. For example, if you are in a resume, then the final result is that you want the job that you have sent to your resume to get that job. Who will read your communication? Maybe the Human Resource Department or the Personnel or Recruitment Department will read it, department heads and managers will read it. And when they are reading your communication in your resume, then what do you want? What is their reaction? Are they impressed? What are the questions in their mind? Or what questions in your resume can you answer? You have to keep those things in mind. Now, since it's very important that you understand your reader, the first step in understanding your reader is to learn who they are. Obviously, when you don't know who you have to read, then you will understand them. So, to understand your readers, it is important that you first know who are the people in your resume or your letter that you will read. Basically, to find out who will read your resume, you will need to find out how your resume will be used by your employer when you apply. So, if you know that your employer is going to share the resume with a large team, then you will tailor it accordingly. If you feel that it's the kind of position where your resume is only going to be read by a select number of people, then you will probably keep that in mind when you're writing your resume. Typically, however, employers recruit new employees in two stages. In the first stage, employers try to attract applications from as many qualified people as possible. This could be by placing an added newspaper, by putting up maybe posters in your educational institution, by announcing job vacancies in different media, in different forums, etc. or by spreading word that there is a vacancy available. So, however the employer does it, they will try to attract as many qualified people as possible. Obviously, the employers who have a post will want better people to fill that post and better people to come to their company. So, they will want more and more applications to come so that they have more choice and they can select easily. Now, at this stage of recruiting, resumes are usually read by people who work in the personnel office. They're not read by senior people. They're read by junior staff or middle management, middle level staff who will basically screen the applications first. All the applications are not directly directed to HR or to the manager. Those who work in that department first will see them, they will read them and then they will refer to them. So, this is the first stage where more and more applications were attracted and then they were screened. Now, to help understand the first stage, you may find it helpful to draw an imaginary picture of one of the people who will be looking at your applications. Imagine a man who sits at his desk to read a stack of applications which have arrived that very day. Now, he could be reading as many as 20 to 25 applications in one particular sitting. He doesn't have time to read through all the applications so he sorts them quickly and he just basically looks at those which merit additional consideration. Obviously, if a person has to read 20 to 25 applications in one day, then he won't be able to read those applications all day long. He will quickly see which of the 20 to 25 applications is a little bit or two or four. They are very impressive. So, obviously, there should be some sort of factors in that resume and those who have applied the application letter, especially in the resume, so that those who are going to read it should attract them so much that they can separate the other 20 to 25 applications from that particular resume on the site and say, okay, I will read this carefully. Now, also, he will be very quick in disqualifying particular resumes. He will look at a resume and he will, if he is not impressed by it immediately then he will put it away. He will disqualify it and it's only occasionally that he will read a full resume because that is the resume that will impress him most. So, as you write your resume, you must keep in mind that it must quickly attract and hold the attention of the person who is reading it so that your resume is amongst those that is kept for further consideration and not amongst those that is disqualified. Obviously, if your resume is planned like this then the format will be such that as soon as you read it, or as soon as you look at it, the person who is in front of the 20 to 25 resumes and who is also reading it, he will separate the resume from you and say, okay, I will read this carefully. Then there will be more chances that you will get that job. And if your resume is such that nothing is being highlighted, not your work experience, not your educational qualifications, not your format, not your objectives, not something that will attract the reader. In the second stage of recruiting, employers carefully scrutinize the qualifications of the people who are applying for jobs. Now, obviously, in the first stage, we saw that among the many resumes, the junior people separated the selected resumes and now they will send the selected resumes to their seniors. Now, those seniors will read the resumes carefully and they will read each detail of them about what kind of work this person has done, what kind of work he had done, what kind of subjects he had studied, etc. in our organization, how they can fit in the best way. Often, in the second stage, it will also require you as the applicant to visit the workplace. It could also include an interview or some companies open house where people can go and interact and they can meet them. Or they can call for interviews or for screening tests, etc. This is the second stage. But obviously, to reach the second stage, your resume should be so attractive that you should be invited to the second stage. Also, keep in mind that at the second stage of recruiting, your resume will be looked at by senior people in the management, probably managers or heads of the department for which you are going to work. To represent your reader, imagine the head of the department at this stage. Obviously, if the person is the head of the department, he is short-handed, he doesn't have too much time, he has a lot of other things to do and also he has an opening in his department that he wants to fill very quickly. He is the head of the department. He has a lot of other things to do. He won't spend a lot of time in your resume. He will look at it carefully. But he also wants you to look at your resume carefully and quickly. So, when he meets you in your resume, he knows exactly what to look for and what to look for. They know precisely what they are looking for. Of course, some job searches vary from this two-stage recruiting process that I have described. In some, there may be more than two stages. Initial screening or careful scrutiny can be between two stages where there are tests, etc. There can be more stages after the second stage where there can be more than one or two interviews. But typically, there are two stages. For example, if you interview at a campus placement centre, you will probably hand in your resume to the company recruiters at the same time as you meet them. So, that then subsumes the two stages in one. If there are many companies that send their recruiters to the university colleges to interview good candidates and bring their resumes, then the two stages are your initial screening and your resume is scrutinized and you have to meet them. So, the formula varies but typically there are two stages. Now, you will want to decide how your resume will affect your readers. This is very important because if your resume affects your readers positively then obviously you have a high success chance. You have a high chance of getting that job and your resume is obviously going to affect the readers negatively then obviously your resume will be put aside. So, you need to keep in mind the effect that your resume is going to have as well. More precisely, you should define how your resume is to affect your readers while they read it. Not only after they have read it but while they are in the process of reading it as well. First of all, you have to think about what your readers will feel after reading your resume. The most important thing is that when they are reading your resume then what will be the effect on them and what will be their reaction? Because while they are reading their reaction will be positive and obviously their reaction will be positive later on. But if the reaction is negative while they are reading then it will not be positive later on. You might be thinking a lot that they should read it again but we are assuming that your recruiter doesn't have enough time to read your resume twice. Now, to determine this, to determine the effect that your resume is going to have on your reader you can think about two things. The first, the way you want your communication to alter your reader's attitude your communication, your resume and your reader's attitude how they are going to change it how they are going to change it and also the task you want to help your readers perform while they read. What are the things which will make your reader easier to read? Your resume's format will make your reader easier to read, to locate, etc. Talking of altering your audience's attitude you will change your audience's attitude how they are going to change if they are negative first determine how your audience feels before reading what you are writing. Are they actually looking for somebody with your qualifications or not, for example and then decide how you want them to feel after they have read it. Now, for example if there is a job in which typically it is for computer experts or job advertisement it was written that those people who have more knowledge are looking for them and you are applying your degree, your background is not of computer systems but your work experience is related. So, when it was written that your degree is related to computer systems it is not your degree but your work experience. Now, you will want that your audience will want to change that attitude and if you are in your resume you will want to show them that you do not have a computer degree but your work experience is related to your work experience so how you will impress them. So, this is basically knowing your reader's attitude you know that they are not partial towards people with a non-computer degree to impress them with your work experience. However, your reader's attitude before they read anything is generally neutral towards you it could be specific towards a particular type of person that they are looking for but they do not have any personal or particular attitude with you. As far as you are concerned you are just one other name for them and that is why you do not think that they will be partial or biased. You write in your resume that your work experience will change. Once you have described your reader to yourself your reader's present and desired attitudes try to find out things about your reader that will help you plan a strategy for persuading them to change their attitudes before the read and to change their attitudes to the way you know what your results are what your reader's attitudes are how you plan your resume that the readers will change their attitudes and even your qualifications do not match their desired expectations but how they are impressed by you. To begin with find out what is the appeal to your audience? What are the things about your background and experience that will appeal to your reader? As common sense will tell you your employer will want to hire people who are capable also they will want to hire people who are pleasant. Obviously applicants must be able to interact pleasantly and in a harmonious manner with the other people there are things like capability, responsibility and pleasant attitude that every employer wants in their employees and that is these are the three key qualities that they will look at capability will be known from your educational background from your work experience responsibility will be known from your work experience from your work experience from your work experience from your work experience especially if you have not done a job then academic references will be mentioned whether it is your responsibility and also your pleasant attitude, your pleasantness will also be reflected through the references that you attach with your resume and also the amount of time that you spent in previous if you have changed your job then the employer will feel maybe you are responsible or maybe you have a personality problem because of which you are not able to spend a lot of time in a job and of course all these qualifications are stated only generally they the ads, the advertisement advertising the job you and your resume will not state directly that you are a pleasant person of course so the reader of your resume will look for specific terms which will indicate to him or her that you are in fact responsible, pleasant and capable instead of asking is this applicant capable they will probably have more specific questions in their mind for example is this applicant capable to Java for example etc they will have specific questions about tasks that they want you to perform and that will answer to your capability and your other qualities as well so obviously they will not think directly that they will not ask you that you are not capable but what they want to do with you will see their evidence that from your resume you will know that your job description can be performed or not now this was reader's attitude the second thing that I mentioned to you earlier which was important was helping your readers perform their tasks helping your reader understand what has been written and locating specific information etc now different kind of communication involve different tasks for the reader when you know what those tasks are you can write your communications in a way that your reader will perform them easily when you will know what your reader has to do what information they want, what they will find then you can write your resume in a way that the tasks your reader has to do can be done easily when reading your resume your readers primary task is to get the answers to the following questions what exactly does the person want to do what do you want to do your prospective employers will ask you which job you are applying what do you want to do why do you want to join their company secondly they will want to look for what kind of education you have what is the education qualification of this person whose resume is in front of me the third question that will come to their mind is what experience does this person have in this or a similar job so obviously it is very important to know what is your work experience and what is your work experience is it the same type of job or not when you will know that all these questions will arise in your employer's mind then you will plan your resume and you will have to look for them also your employer will want to look at what are the activities you have been engaged in that have helped you in preparing for this job what other activities have you done extracurricular, co-curricular university college where you were in your job in your previous company you were involved in such activities now you can perform better in this job also they will also want to see how they can get more information about you and about your qualifications so here the references section will help so knowing that you are looking for the answers to all these these main five questions tells you a great deal about what to include in your resume when you know that these five questions are in your resume then you will include these five sections in your resume coming to planning now that you know your objectives you know what your audience's attitude is you know what they are looking for then you will start to plan your resume and when you plan you decide what to say and how to organize your material to find any relevant expectations your readers have about your communication if you think that there are any expectations of your readers in your resume then you should keep those expectations in your mind then you start writing in your resume so that you can meet those expectations these expectations may limit the choices you make concerning content and organization if you know that there are some particular expectations in your resume then your choices may reduce because now according to those expectations you will have to tailor or draft according to those expectations when you need to decide what to say you need to keep in mind the purpose of your resume and your definition of your resume's purpose provides you with direct help in determining what you say when you have defined your purpose what you need to highlight and what you need to write then your future work becomes very easy in addition you must remember that your resume is a persuasive argument whose purpose is to convince your readers to hire you when you are writing you want to persuade them that you are the best person for that job then your resume is a persuasive document and whatever information you include you should do it so that your readers have a positive impact the persuasive argument has two elements a claim and evidence to support your claim so whatever you claim in your resume you need to give evidence for example, if you are claiming that you have worked in a company then you need to show what was involved in that job what was the job description what you were working on and also you need to write a letter of reference so that the evidence matches the claim that you have worked in your definition of your objectives what the implicit claim of your resume should be when you start writing your objectives or if you have not written but you know what your objectives are what impact you are going to have on your readers then you will write your claims and a lot of the times these claims are not explicit but if you are claiming directly you will not be saying to your employer look at me, I am capable but the information you include in your resume will show your reader that you are indeed capable or responsible or pleasant and basically the type of employee that the employer wants to hire furthermore you can identify the specific facts you can mention as evidence to support the claim about yourself whatever you think in your mind keep in mind that you can mention specific facts specific things in your resume because you know that your readers your past experiences choose these things or these experiences are more relevant for you you will highlight them and with them you will include their corresponding evidence Now your objectives can identify the specific facts by alerting you to the kind of questions your readers will be asking about your resume if you have an idea of what your objectives are what type of job you are applying for what you want your reader to think by the time they have finished reading your resume then you can also preempt the questions that your reader will be asking you can think in your mind what questions you will get Now as I mentioned earlier conventionally your CV will have five main sections it will talk about your objectives your education and honors any work experience your interests and there will be a section which talks about your references and who your referees are Now in the section where you talk about your objectives the usual questions asked by the reader will be what exactly do you want to do you need persuasive claim you need to convince them that you have a sense of direction and that you want the job that the employer or the reader has now tell me that you have a sense of direction and you want to do this job you obviously will keep your language and your content in the section of education and honors the question that your reader will have is do you have the required knowledge to do this and that is why they will read that section of education and qualifications to find out if you have the required knowledge or not and you then need to convince them that you have the required knowledge and also in fact perhaps more knowledge than the reader expected so you need to give them something extra you need to impress them by the education that you have that does not mean that you make up education or qualification that you do not have but it means that you highlight anything that you have done which would be relevant to the job and also things that may not be directly relevant in terms of qualification but things that will be useful in your job and qualifications which your employer is not expecting you to have for example if you feel that the employer will want somebody who has done a BCS and you have that but you also have extra computer related courses to your credit then you should highlight those because those are things that the employer is not expecting you to have but those are definitely qualifications that will that will lead them to favor you because there might be more than other applicants will have similarly in the section where you are talking about your work experience the questions that will arise in the reader's mind will be do you have experience in this or a similar job and what responsibilities have you had that is basically what they are looking for when they are reading your section about work experience and you need to impress upon them that you have the related experience and you have learned many things which are directly relevant to the job that you are applying for and you also want to show them that you are trusted by your previous employers so you will then write what your jobs what jobs you have held and also what responsibilities you have held in those jobs and any credits or distinctions that you have earned while you were in those positions you will mention those as well obviously whatever job experiences you have you will write them in such a way that your best work will be highlighted so that the new employers trust you and they will know that your previous employers used to rely on you and you used to think you are so responsible, capable and pleasant the fourth section will be of your interests your personal interests, your co-curricular extracurricular activities now the reader will want to read this section because they will want to know if your interests show that you are a pleasant person or not but what you have done in your job what you have written in your work experiences section your capabilities are known your responsibilities are known whether you are responsible or capable obviously as much as you have done in your span you will be able to know whether you can coexist with other people or not but more about your personality you will show that you are an interesting well rounded person who can work well with others you need to then list the activities that you enjoy the activities that you are involved in your hobbies which will show that how well rounded a person you are people normally when they are looking for employers they are not interested in people who can only work well they are also interested in people who can communicate well with others around them as well and who can coexist well with others around them nobody wants a worker in their organization who is only working and cannot cooperate with others just do your job and do not cooperate with others that is not a good culture that is why people want such people who do their job very well and also cooperate and cooperate so you need to show that you are interesting well rounded and the kind of person that other people will want to work with coming to the section of references in that section the questions that will come up in the minds of your reader how can I get more information about this person who is it that I should contact so that I can get more information about this person what is it that this person is going to tell me about the applicant so you need to give names of important people with knowledge of your business and knowledge of your qualifications who can attest that you would make a good employee either you give their names or write their names and also attach their reference letters but if you have not even attached your phone numbers how can you contact them write them so that your employers can contact them to get your reference for example in the definition of objectives in your resume you will need to highlight points as major evidence that you are qualified for the job you seek so you need to then organize points that will highlight your qualifications in that objective statement you can have more than one organizational pattern to achieve your objectives you can have a conventional CV with the five sections that I showed you earlier and keep in mind that most resumes are organized around an applicant's experience especially if they are resumes which are going for a job which requires work experience then you will be highlighting your experience because that is what is most important and you can then organize your experiences under educational experiences or work experiences now also within that depending on what is stronger for you you will highlight for example if you had long work experience impressive work experience then you will probably put that first and then talk about your educational experience but if your educational qualifications are very impressive limited work experience then you will highlight your educational qualifications by putting those first and then you will talk about your work experience and so on some individuals choose to organize a substantial part of their resumes around their accomplishments and abilities as opposed to their experiences and such a resume is called a functional resume because it emphasizes the functions and tasks that the applicant can perform so instead of highlighting the experiences you can also highlight the functions that you are able to perform whichever organizational pattern you use you must still decide the order in which you will present your resume whatever you are using conventional pattern or functional pattern you still have to keep an eye on your audience and think what you will write first and then what you will write if you think about your readers in the act of your resume if you think about them while they are reading you will see that you have to make your name and professional achievements prominent whatever organizational pattern you use is up to what capabilities you have if you are writing a conventional resume you can provide the desired prominence the desired highlighting by placing the name and professional objectives at the top conventional resume may have the same objectives if you are designing a non-conventional resume you may place your name along the bottom or the side because you are getting a little different your resume is not at all conventional but the conventional resume will have the same name and then your experiences whether it is work or educational whatever order you decide and then your interests and references so keep in mind that after stating your professional objective you should organize your remaining material by following one of the most basic rules of strategies of writing at work which is that you should put the most important information first this will ensure that your readers who have very little time will come to the most important information quickly a final task involved with planning communication is to consider the expectations your audience have about it you need to find out what is expected from you and from your communication often expectations arise from custom reflecting conventional rather than required ways of doing things many readers have expectations from a communication because they have the habit of seeing a communication they have a custom that this thing will be written like this what is the real way of writing of a communication so you should also know what are your expectations what are the readers expecting not that you should only write according to the rules you need to keep in mind that applying for jobs is a highly ritualized activity in our society and many conventions about resumes exist so and although these conventions may vary from one place to another you need to deal with them effectively and refer to the same advice that I gave you before learn about your readers and create your communications effectively for example people in conservative fields take a similar conservative approach to resumes they will expect conventional resumes to them resumes should be typed in a white buff or grey paper with the applicant's name and address at the top and then the five sections in contrast people in other fields such as advertising are accustomed to seeing more innovative material and they are accustomed to seeing highly unconventional resumes perhaps printed on pink paper for example or in different forms so keep in mind that the conventions in your field may be different and you may have to do some investigating to learn whether or not that is the case and what the conventions are it is not necessary that in every field there are one type of conventions the conventions are the same expectations that are made so you should have an idea that the type of company you are applying what are their expectations what are the conventions of that area and then you will write your resume so when you draft you transform your plan your notes, outlines and ideas into a communication for your resume that you create at work you must not only draft prose but also draft the design the visual appearance of your message it is not only the content of the message that is important it is also how that content looks that is going to impress your reader while you draft the prose of your resume keep in mind the imaginary portraits of your readers and then make your resume draft the content in it you will also write that and remember that your purpose is to enable those people to look at answers to the questions relating to you when you state your professional objective you answer your reader's question what exactly do you want to do as we have seen with professional objective the reader's question is what are you going to do the answer is extremely important to the resume in a survey personal officers or recruiters of 500 largest corporations of the US, United States reported that the most serious problem they face when reading resumes is the failure to specify job objectives and career objectives so they felt that in all the resumes that they read they feel that they have a weak part of professional objectives now what should your professional objectives look like by convention such statements are one or two sentences long and are usually general enough that the writer could send them without alteration to many prospective employers if you follow the convention for example you would not say I want to work in the process control department of a cloth manufacturing unit because then you are only writing the objective statement for Aadamji cloth manufacturing unit in contrast you could make a more general statement like I want to work in the process control department of a mid-sized cloth manufacturing unit this way you can send your resume to many companies with the same kind of profile this does not mean however that you need to develop a single professional objective that you can send to all employers you could write multiple resumes and each could have a different professional objective suited to the respected field so if you are applying to different types of organizations for example if all applications are not going to mid-sized cloth manufacturing units then you could write different resumes tailored to the field to which the resume will go to consequently the challenge then when you are writing your professional objective is to be neither too general nor too specific you have to strike the proper balance so that you could send the same resume to several companies and so that your readers can see that you want to work in a particular kind of organization rather than that particular organization when describing education you can provide evidence that you are capable of performing the job that you applied for this basic evidence is your college degree so you should name the college and your degree and date of graduation if your grades are good mention those if you had any honors mention those if you have any specialized academic experience such as an internship you should describe that now when you are deciding on the order in which to present your jobs if you've got a vast work experience you need to decide how you're going to talk about them remember that you want to enable your busy readers to see your most impressive qualifications most people can achieve this objective by stating their jobs in the reverse chronological order this means that you should mention the jobs that you have held recently and then talk about jobs that you have held earlier so talk about most recent things first because they are likely to be the most senior position that you have held so in this lecture you learned to write your resume keeping in mind the reader you learn to define your objectives and how to plan, draft, evaluate and revise the resume in this lecture you learned how to write your resumes by keeping the reader in mind you learned how to define your objectives plan, draft, evaluate and revise an impressive resume if you have any questions feel free to email us the address is English at v-u-dot-e-d-u-dot-p-k until next time, Allah Hafiz