LibGuides: Careers & Jobs: Resumes and Interviewing

About Resumes and Interviewing Skills

Make sure your job application and resume form a good first impression for potential employers. A resume highlights your experience, education and training, and skills. A cover letter may not be required, but it serves as an introduction that may help you stand out. The cover letter is the place to show your enthusiasm and fit for a specific job. It also demonstrates your ability to communicate in text. If your paperwork (or online work) represents you well, you're more like to land an interview.

STLCC Career Advising
Make an appointment with a career advisor for personalized guidance, or use the self-guided assessment and tools to explore career fields. Make connections with prospective employers and get advice on applying and interviewing for jobs. You can even have your resume professionally reviewed.
Top 10 Job Interview Questions & Answers (for 1st & 2nd Interviews)
By Don Georgevich, author and career coach. Over 4 million views. This video will show you how to be prepared for your next job interview. When you know how to answer these interview questions and answers, you will be more prepared than everyone else who is interviewing for the job.

Library Databases

Career Preparation @ LearningExpress
Information about finding and preparing for your career. Includes practice tests for certifications.
NOTE: To use materials and tools, create an account in Learning Express. The account is free, just select "Register" under New Users.
When users log in, they will see another section called My Center, where the tutorials, ebooks, tests, etc. used are stored for later access.

Learning Express User's Guide
Ferguson's Career Guidance Center
Provides industry and job profiles, advice on career skills, and thousands of resource entries.
Ferguson's Career Guidance Center career research database is broken down into three main sections: Job and Industry Profiles, Job-Hunting and Workplace Skills, and Career and Industry Resources. The material is drawn from a range of sources and is extensively indexed.

The Job and Industry Profiles section includes industry profiles organized by the U.S. Department of Education's Career Clusters and thousands of articles on specific jobs. The Job-Hunting and Workplace Skills section gives guidance on the essentials of getting a job and keeping it -- establishing a career path, honing interview skills, writing resumes, and more. The Career and Industry Resources section includes searchable, browsable resource entries divided into convenient categories on fellowships, organizations, internships, scholarships, and awards.

Other sections of interest include School Searches (four comprehensive, current databases, provided by Peterson's Nelnet, LLC, covering undergraduate, graduate, nursing, and vocational and technical schools in the U.S. and Canada), where users can search for schools by type, region, areas of study, and a variety of other characteristics; Career Interest Assessment (a test that ranks users' work interest areas and suggests related occupations and industries); and Links to Outside Jobs (access to current, live job postings).

Features include videos covering jobs, industries, and career development skills; advice from nationally renowned author and career expert Sue Morem for recent graduates, job seekers, and people advancing in the workplace; "My Life" interviews with professionals; Career Opportunities News; persistent record links, and dynamic citations in MLA and Chicago Manual of Style formats.

Basic Search help

Creating Your Resume or Cover Letter

The Internet provides a wide array of sites that want to help you build a resume, create a cover letter, and prepare for a job interview. Some of these are commercial and some are free. Below are a few sites which may be helpful.

Microsoft Word Resume and CV Templates
The link above will not take you to Microsoft Word, but it is available on every computer in STLCC computer labs and libraries. It is very useful for building a resume. Ask for help if you do not know how to begin. The link above does list additional resume templates which may be downloaded for use with Microsoft Word.
20+ Infographic Resume Templates and Design Tips to Help You Land That Job
Vennage, June 22, 2018, by Sara McGuide
21 Cover Letter Templates and Expert Design Tips to Impress Employers
Vennage, May 16, 2019, by Sara McGuide
Resume Writing Tutorial, GCFLearnFree.org
In this free tutorial, learn the process of creating a professional resume that stands out from the crowd.
Cover Letters Tutorial, GCFLearnFree.org
This tutorial offers tips, techniques, samples, and a cover letter template to help you get noticed by prospective employers.
How to Make a Resume in 2024: Beginner's Guide | Novorésumé
The OWL at Purdue: Resume Workshop
My Perfect Resume
Commercial site offering free templates and advice on resumes and cover letters.

Books

In a specialized search like this, searching using Library of Congress Subject Headings is the best way to go. Click on the links below to go to lists of books. These lists are in alphabetical order, but can be sorted by date. Also, books at an STLCC campus other than your own may be requested using your A number and be picked up at your own campus within a day or two of requesting.

Résumés (Employment) (also includes info on cover letters)
Job hunting
Employment interviewing