Memo
of Interests
(Resume Preview)
General Description
To: New Center Interns
From: Instructor
Re: Request for personal information
I will be helping everyone begin project proposals over the next few weeks, including assisting all interns with either forming a project group or developing an individual project. In addition, I will be working with you in developing your biography web page for the organization. For those related projects, I will need some information from you. Please communicate to me your interests, experience, skills in relation to a project you may want to pursue for this course.
Please write a memo in the appropriate memo format that provides me with the information I have outlined below. Memos are similar to letters. Both kinds of documents can serve a variety of communicative purposes--sharing or requesting information, reporting on a specific situation, suggesting solutions for problems or issues, or outlining a course of action (just to name a few). Both kinds of documents can be long or short, and formal or informal, depending on the communication situation.
There are some important differences—letters typically go to people outside of the organization or group you are working with, and memos typically go to people inside the organization or group. There are also some important formatting differences between a business letter and a memo. (See resources listed below.)
This assignment will serve as a resource for facilitating team structures, will serve as material for you to develop your personal web page, will be the starting point for your resume, and will help you shape a final project (either group or individual). That is to say, this is an important memo.
Writing this memo will help you begin thinking about skills, experiences, and knowledge that you have that you can list on your resume (which you will be developing over the course of the semester).
In the memo, you are
not only identifying your skills, but discussing the relationship between
these skills and how people in your field communicate—that is, how does
what you already know prepare you to work and communicate professionally in
your field? (Before you answer this question, you may need to review some
web sites in your field to investigate how people in your field communicate--for
what kinds of purposes do they communicate? What kinds of tools do they use?
What kinds of issues do they discuss? What kinds of tone and style are typical?)
This might sound daunting,
but the following questions may help you think of experiences and knowledge
that you have that you might want to discuss in the memo.
When you are building a resume, it can be useful to generate a list of your
- past experiences,
- current skills, and
- future goals.
The following exercises may be helpful in generating this list.
1) List everything you can think of that fits into the following four categories:
- education - what degrees have you completed (or are in the process of completing)? Did specific courses that you have taken give you experience that you’d like potential employers to know about?
- work experience - what jobs have you held? What were your responsibilities?
- activities - what extracurricular, community, church, athletic, social, or political groups have you been involved in? What skills did you use in these groups?
- skills - can you think of other skills that you have that are related to your field?
2) List 9 or 10 important accomplishments that you have made in the past five years. After you have listed the accomplishments, consider the following questions for each one:
- why was this accomplishment important to you?
- what personal traits did you demonstrate?
- what skills or knowledge did you use?
3) Think of a time when you
- helped a group you were involved in identify and solve a problem,
- helped a group you were involved in solve a conflict,
- persuaded a group of people to follow a particular course of action,
- presented your ideas or research to a group of people.
Organize these experiences
and skills into an informative document that you and I will be able to refer
to as you develop your professional biography and your resume.
Required Documents for this Assignment
- project assessment memo
- memo (sent by email)
to your instructor discussing your interests and expertise (typical length:
2-3 pages, memo
format)
Resources
Christensen, G. Jay.
"Memoitis." 8 Jan 2001. http://www.csun.edu/~vcecn006/memo.htm.