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Ok cool welcome to the cover letter side by side.



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We're going to be writing the cover letter today for Alex Smith.



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Alex is a recent graduate of Sacramento State University and he's looking to join a nonprofit organization.



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So one of the first things we're going to do is just take out this red bit here and we're not going



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to mess too much with this contact information section because that'll be your contact information and



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we're going to just go and open the website of the organization that Alex is targeting in this case.



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It is the Sierra Health Foundation.



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And so one of them one of the first things that we're going to do actually is go over here to the easel



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SJS guide.



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So you'll see how to use the SJS.



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And so step 1 let's just start to think about the organizations culture and let's see what size the



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organization is.



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Let's go back to Sierra Health and actually what you can see is that the we have the staff page open.



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And so when you go you look at the staff you'll see that it's not.



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There's not too many people at Sierra Health.



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So it's a fairly small organization.



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And then when you go back and you look at the essays you can see that you'll need to talk about you



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know the variety of needs that Sierra Health might have.



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And you'll also notice that your audience is probably not going to be like an dedicated recruiter.



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Will probably be the founder of the organization or even you know an assistant or something like that.



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So in that case you can write a little bit more informally.



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And then let's just go to step two which is to look at the cultural tendencies of the particular industry.



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And so when we go down here we're going to go to government and nonprofits and you'll see that they



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tend to value candidates who are all about fulfilling their mission and serving the public interest.



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So when we go back over here to this year a health Fondation I have their vision mission and values



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up.



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And you can see right here from their vision that their vision is to have a healthy life for Northern



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Californians.



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All right cool.



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So then what we're going to do is just keep that in our minds as we start to develop this cover letter.



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If you were actually going to be applying to some organizations you might want to continue down to the



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third part of the SJS which is who owns the organization in this case since is nonprofit it's the general



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public or donors.



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So again this is going to be about candidates who are in it for the public good anyway so we're back



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here.



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And actually one thing that I've noticed here is we have to decide whether we're going to send this



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as an e-mail attachment or as a separate attachment.



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So let's go back over here.



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And one thing you'll notice is that when you go over to the news page you see Chet Hewitt's contact



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information right here.



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He's the president and CEO.



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So you can actually e-mail him and that's great.



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So we're actually e-mail it.



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So because that's the case we're just going to actually remove this stuff here.



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And actually what we'll probably do is remove this whole section here because they're going to know



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that it's coming from Alex Smith because Alex is going to be sending it via e-mail.



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All right.



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And then let's just address this to Mr. Hewitt and the Sierra Health Team.



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OK.



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And Alex is applying for a lead fundraiser position.



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All right.



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So now Alex is going to move on to the second bit in blue here which is to show the organization that



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you care because you've done some research.



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Remember these people are dedicating a lot of their lives to this organization so they want to know



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that you care about it.



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So one thing that I that I've done here is I've opened the news page on this year health Foundation's



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Web site and you can see that they've launched this California Health Report TV.



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So if I was Alex actually what I would do is go and watch this episode.



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You could learn more about it.



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But in this case let's just go back to the cover letter and say something like I see that your health



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has resus recently launched an initiative to increase public awareness with the California Health TV



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project



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OK.



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Call



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All right.



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And then evidence of what you're going to see is I think that this is redundant to say you're a health



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again here.



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Let's just take that out.



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And then now we're going to have to decide whether or not there are some barriers that that Alex needs



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to address in his cover letter or if he's going to go ahead and just talk about his X Factor.



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So what he's going to do is just open the barriers checklist and I've got that open in another window.



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Here we go.



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All right.



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So Alex just going to go down this checklist and and make sure that that and see if he has one of these



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barriers in this case.



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I know Alex his this is kind of his industry.



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So he doesn't have any of these barriers but let's say that he was in his last position for very long



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then he would probably want to just go ahead and talk about this part here.



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Look look at this green bit here about how to address this barrier in his cover letter.



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But in this case we're not doing that we're talking about the X Factor so we're going to go back over



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here to the cover letter and just going to delete this here



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all right.



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So now we're going to delete this stuff here again because we're not going with option number two the



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X Factor.



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And in this case Alex's X Factor is engaging and managing thriving online communities like Facebook



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groups and stuff like that.



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So let's just say it seems pertinent for your team to know about my ability to engage stakeholders online



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and grow online communities.



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All right



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and then so this stuff here is for the option 1 and in so here we're going to go delete that.



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And so for option 2 which is describing the X Factor.



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We're going to first explain how the X Factor came about.



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So you might say something like this skill came about when I was a student at Sacramento State University



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and then just going a little bit so you might say something like There I created the first Facebook



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community for the university and grew it to over 5000 members in just under three years.



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All right you might even say something like that group is still the defacto university community.



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All right.



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The next move is to just connect that skill to your health.



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And so we know that Sierra Health's mission is to increase health and health awareness in northern California.



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So we might say something like If I join the team at Sierra Health I would love to bring these skills



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to the table so that we could increase awareness about health and healthy living in Northern California.



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All right so you see here when we talk about you know health and healthy living to the community in



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Northern California.



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If you remember when we go here and we look at Ceara health vision that's exactly what they're trying



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to do.



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So you want to connect your skill to what they're trying to do.



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All right I don't think in this case we need a summary.



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So let's just delete that.



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OK.



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And then so we're just going to wrap it up and then so I know how important it is that that's how leave



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this to find a person who.



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OK.



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In this case fundraising is about engaging stakeholders and basically getting them to donate money.



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So let's try to connect that back



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so some might say something like find a person who is able to engage Sierra stakeholders and allocate



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the resources necessary for the organization to execute its mission.



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All right so then let's just go ahead and plug that in here health.



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Find someone who will be a.



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So in this case Alex has done a lot of description about himself.



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Maybe you can just talk a little bit about how he is on a team.



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So maybe they find someone who will be a dynamic active and passionate member of the team.



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As a member of a team.



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All right.



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And so we're just going to wrap it up here with Alex Smith.



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So I've used pages to create this document.



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You can certainly use Word or any other word processing software.



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The final thing to do is just to go in here and to make this black.



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And then you can copy paste that into your email and you can use it maybe for other purposes as well



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down the line.



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This completed cover letter is available to you as a download attached to this lecture.



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So check it out.



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And please leave questions and feedback if you would like to so that we can engage in the on the platform



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here.