Thursday Thoughts: Using Your Academic Writing Skills to Find a Career

You probably spend a lot of time working on discussion posts, essays, and projects for your classes, but do you spend the same amount of time on your cover letter and resume? It may seem like the most important focus for these documents is your actual experience and education, but sentence structure, word choice, and organization matter too. All the academic writing skills you have learned about and refined as a student writer can be applied to the career search and application process. The Walden University Career Services Center provides education and support for the career navigation process. The Writing Center often works with Career Services to share tips and advice for crafting application documents. Although a cover letter may not bear resemblance to a course paper, it is possible to apply academic writing skills and knowledge to the cover letter.

Here is a collection of some of our resources for writing application documents

Become a stronger job applicant using academic writing skills: From document formatting to sentence structure, this post reviews some important things to keep in mind when writing a variety of application documents.

Tips to make your cover letter strong: Your cover letter may be the first thing a potential employer reads, so start with this page on our website to discover techniques to make an impact with your cover letter.

How to Write A Dynamic Cover Letter:  Let a career services adviser explain the process of writing a cover letter.

Is your resume ready for your next career move? It's nice to have a reminder to keep your resume current and ready to submit. Here, you can read about resume tips from a career services adviser, including how to use strong and clear verbs. 

While you probably won't be including outside research and citing sources in your cover letter and resume, you will be able to find ways to apply your academic writing knowledge.

The Walden Writing Center provides information and assistance to students with services like live chat, webinars, course visits, paper reviews, podcasts, modules, and the writing center webpages. Through these services they provide students assistance with APA, scholarly writing, and help students gain skills and confidence to enhance their scholarly work.

Never miss a new post; Opt-out at any time