The Goldenrod Chronicles, Please Accept This Application

An honest cover letter.

(Before we start, please choose one noun (a la Mad Libs) which you will fill in below.

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September 30, 2021 

Dear Nick Cave, Dr. Kindly, and the TIMDJ Hiring Committee,

I am thrilled to apply for the “Outreach Program Manager” position with the Center for This Is My Dream Job even though it sounds like you are trying to squish the work of three people into one position. I am going to use the following four paragraphs to outline how great a fit I am for your organization and this role, but we all know this is a sort of alchemical magic where I try to make the current and aspirational versions of myself fit within your stated needs and expectations. So, already we’re off and running toward an unhealthy relationship. With forty years’ experience walking this earth in a human skin suit, and ten years exhausting said skin suit administering strategic outreach and research programs in a university setting, I am eager to contribute my energetic and detail-oriented skills to your new ___(your noun)___ research, because frankly anything has to be better than this bucket of dumb rocks in which I am currently drowning.

In my role as Senior Do-Literally-Every-Single-Task Specialist at the Center for How I Am Currently Wasting My Life at FU–State, I create and manage innovative food system and public health programs, while also wrangling cats. I bring a unique background in project and grant management, outreach and communications, facilitation, and evaluation paired with a spirit of strategic creativity. What does that even mean, you ask? As an example, I just smooshed all the keywords from your application and put them in one paragraph. One Paragraph. I am a Genuis!

I possess an attention to detail and implement efficient management and operations strategies to lead teams to excel in their work. This is a skillset I only apply to my professional life, I do not waste it on my personal life. I will strive to complete and submit all your Unit’s reports in a timely fashion and maintain sufficient funding for all staff. And in doing so I will completely neglect, if not ignore, basic and or normal responsible adult activities like maintaining toilet paper in my house or purchasing food on a regular basis to maintain a balanced diet. In addition, I have a strong track record of completing all tasks in a timely fashion and I reserve that energy only for my job, unlike in my personal life in which I have not completed installing the window trim on my three-year-old ‘new’ house. This demonstrates my innate ability to throw all my daytime, and nighttime, energy into excelling at my paid job, at the expense of my personal life, which makes me a high value employee for you.

Look at this beautiful paragraph, it’s entirely bullshit. But if I don’t craft and include this paragraph, this letter will look too short on the page, no matter how I change the margins, spacing, and font size. See, look - this is proof I am really good at knowing how things should look and be done. And, just in case this is getting scanned by some machine, here are some additional keywords: significant training and practice in meeting and process facilitation, extensive experience in event planning and execution ranging from detailed trainings to national conferences to local and national communities of practice, convening multi-stakeholder audiences, including university, community, and state agency partners, to build trust-based relationships. Jargon, I KNOW ALL OF IT.

Outreach and communication activities are foundational to my work, including freelance journalism, grant writing, development of internal and external communications like press releases, grant and evaluation reports, promotional materials, and training documentation for a variety of audiences. I am trying to demonstrate those skills right here, but like - casually - so it doesn’t seem like I spent three hours painstakingly refining the previous cover letter I just submitted to another job a few days ago that was already pretty perfect. My additional communication skills include overthinking almost every word I write, using the thesaurus, and writing a lot of things I later delete. 

Managing projects, secretly using the toilet while on Zoom, and diplomatically gritting my teeth and not yelling while facilitating dummies who just don’t get it are my core strengths. I thrive in a fast paced environment where I can practice my leadership, strategic planning, and evaluation skills regularly. I am eager to translate my diverse experience into the work of the dynamic___(your noun)___ research team of TIMDJ.

Thank you for your consideration,
Vanessa H