Career Couch Strikes again with another great article

Another Career Couch article worth reading: A Cover Letter is not Expendable .

Three things stand out for me in this article:
1. 25% of applicants to one job mentioned neglected to include a cover letter; most were within 5 years of graduating from college.
2. Something as old fashioned as mailing your cover letter and resume, in addition to emailing everything gets attention (probably because most people don't bother).
3. Hiring managers look for ways to exclude you during the hiring process (ironic that the hiring process isn't about hiring at all)

It is entirely possible that I like this article because it supports everything that I've been teaching in class. And that I constantly worry that the informal atmosphere in school reinforces the informality that I see in students (incomplete or late assignments, texting during labs, etc.), which is the kiss of death when you are looking for a career-track position (or a recommendation for that matter).

I'll make a weak analogy to just getting your license and convincing your parents that you are responsible enough to take the family wheels on your own. The attitudes that your parents have were formed at least 20 years ago. Your parents are worried that you'll do something irresponsible, like speed or run red lights, that will lead to damaging the car at the least or yourself and others at the worst. So, your whole goal in convincing them that you're an acceptable risk is to tap into their attitudes and do all the things that they expect and none of the things that would freak them out. So you wear your seatbelt, drive 5mph below the speed limit, you head check, signal and come to a full stop.

Similarly in the hiring process, the people doing the hiring have attitudes and expectations of what applicants will do that were formed a while ago and in trial by fire. They're worried that the person they hire will perform poorly, resulting in more work for them, long periods of anguish and a damaged reputation. Your whole goal, like convincing your parents, is to tap into what their expectations are and meet or exceed them; hence the cover letter & resume, etc., etc.

Everyone knows that learning to write a cover letter is like learning to use a clutch- it seems impossible when the car stalls the first few times and you've got a line of cars behind you, but after time, it gets easier.

When you think of it, after reading the article, how funny is it that something as old fashioned as mailing your cover letter and resume as a follow up to an electronic submission is now seen as something that can get you extra attention and an interview.

O, Canada

Two cool things about this article in the Leader-Post Saskatchewan, Canada.

One, geographic information systems (GIS) analysts are listed as one of several career fields that are experiencing growth due to demand in "green" sector employment (construction, auditing, etc.).

Two, geographic information systems (GIS) analysts are listed along side engineering, environmental techs and conservation biologists like its something people have some knowledge of. There's no paragraph description of what GIS is, etc. A sign that GIS is becoming mainstream? At least in Saskatchewan.

Downside about this article. The jobs that they're discussing aren't in southeast Ohio. But they could be...

GPS Apps II class for Tuesday, February 10th

A couple of students will have the time to create a schedule for occupying control points and the corner stones, so the rest of you can come in at the regular time.

I also had a chance to download the TDS data from Tuesday and the internal results were good. I need Doug to decipher the distances for me to get a report on how the TDS results match reality.

John mentioned inversing between the points to get the distance (which the GPS software and most software that works with coordinates does automatically). The formula to accomplish this (from Wolf & Ghilani) is

Length_AB = √(change in X)² + (change in Y)²

in english, to get the length between points A and B, you take the square root of the (X coordinate of A minus the X coordinate of B) squared plus (the Y coordinate of A minus the Y coordinate of B) squared.
Its a good thing to know how to do in the field as a check for the results that you are getting. Besides you have a lot of time on your hands during a static survey- you gotta have something to do besides read...