I saw that she did not remove the tables and columns from her CV and she said her tutor asked them to keep it that way…

Furthermore, she put me as a referral on her cv for the mentorship programme which I gave her the green light. Tutor said it is good to have a referral and asked what is this programme about…

I really think people shouldn’t stay too long in their comfort zone and should attend more external events and try to talk to people internally and externally to stay current.

What do I know? I’m not qualified to be a HR tutor in a local tertiary after all. 😅

My mentee contacted me about writing cover letters.

GOSH. I don’t have a current cover letter myself. I don’t use it and haven’t been using it for more than 15 years?

As the name implies, it should be before your CV. Not after. I told her that when she shared her screen.

When I come across job openings that needed a cover letter for job application, I skipped applying for the job completely.

In theory, it is best practice to have one and customised it accordingly. In school, you learn theory so I obliged and searched for a good example cover letter online.

Companies that still ask for this are not in line with the current applicant markets. This will result in desperate people who made the effort to be granted interviews which is not too bad a situation. Good candidates who have choices won’t bother.

I said it is not current because the tech giant I used to work for hire people based on their content, online presence in their area of expertise. It is not even through LinkedIn.

“You can split this and put your relevant skills to this job in point form for this paragraph,” I said.

“This type fast thing is how many words per minute? This error rate you mentioned is how many percent?,” I asked.

You have to justify with statistics of your claims…. Tutor actually went through this cover letter before………………..

I really have no idea how the selection process for tutors in local tertiaries are nowadays. The interview would be a walk in a park for me, but I don’t have a Degree or Masters in HR to be granted an interview.

More on my mentoring journey here.