For writing project 3, I decided to write a letter to a company I found on the Northeastern coop listing website. Overall I never felt too constrained by the schema, since it did a good job of differentiating sections that were more static versus sections that might vary from person to person. For example, the header of a cover letter is going to be extremely similar from person to person, but the body of the letter is going to vary much more. The group that created the schema ended up using attributes to differentiate between different types of experiences (ex. school, work, etc) for some added flexibility, which I thought was useful since it also gave me ideas for what I should be putting in my cover letter. I definitely think the schema helped me stay focused while writing my cover letter, and comparing it to cover letters I’ve written previously, I do feel like I see some improvement.
While comparing my work to the cover letter my peer wrote, I did see some things they did well that I should integrate into my cover letter. They did do a much better job of going into the important details of their experiences and how they relate to the job they are currently applying to. They pointed out that in my cover letter, I mention that I worked at an finance oriented place and the job I was applying to was at a finance oriented company, but I never took advantage of that connection to show why I’d be a good candidate for the position.
As for the schema, I think it does an appropriate job of outlining what a cover letter needs to be. I’m sure there is room for small improvements with some added tags in contact information and the signature, but I think the body struck a good balance between flexibility and structure.
