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I’m sure you’ve visited career services for your resume and cover letter reviews and indulged in many interview prep discussions. All of those steps are extremely important to keep the career ball in motion and keeping you on track to achieve your goals. However, there’s one more resource that you may have overlooked: your friends and peers. These are the people who know you and could be a great resource for feedback.
You’d be surprised how helpful friends or peers can be if you let them know about your career interests and share your resume for one more review. They could give feedback that can bolster your materials even more. They may share that you left some important information off your resume such as presenting on a specific topic in class, or a paper you wrote.
From my personal experience, I can confirm that my friends gave me helpful feedback and also added more relevant information to my cover letters and resume.
The issue appears because we are all too close to our own materials and experience; therefore, we might not be highlighting the most significant information. We think we shared enough with our audience but may have, in fact, left off an important detail, or went on a rant for far too long in a cover letter. We’ve all been there! If you strike a balance sharing your experience, volunteerism, activities, achievements, projects, etc. in your cover letters, interviews and resumes, you’ll have hit the right notes.
Additional bonus—when you ask your peers for feedback, remember your peers have experience in different industries and work places, so you can also be learning about their experience and gain some more insight into other areas of business.
Reaching out to friends and peers for feedback can be a useful resource.
