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so I've helped some 43 students with cover letters over the last I don't know three or four days and I'm kind of come to the conclusion that while I don't recommend a template and that the templates that are currently available are not good they are and I'm already kind of put in my criticism as to the one template but there's another one it's just like it they are general they are very self-serving and in some ways they're very insulting so what I did was I created my own I don't have much voice a little bit under the weather but I'm going to go through what I created which is a template not meant to copy but meant to educate and show you how this works I'll put it on memorizing pharmacology dot-com Ford / residency health and I'm just gonna go through all the things that I've kind of seen and not calling anyone out or anything like that but rather I just want you to get this right because in many ways they're also looking at the quality of your writing and it has to look like what it's supposed to so I'm gonna go over some things that I also know about just because I was a doctoral student in rhetoric and professional communication so let's start with the heading some people do this they put it in the header so if you go into Microsoft Word the header is separate from this the only issue with this is if you go over one page this is what's going to happen so there's the header name address where I'm at and my email well you could probably put your phone there too if I go down one the header remains so it's a good solution if you're just doing one page but if you switch to I'm sorry 12-point font so right now I have Calibri body 11 and watch what happens when I go to 12 point so now it's gone into the second and it's kind of unnecessary so a couple of things about the font itself so let's go back to 11 so we have our nice clean one-page letter which is what I recommend oh I just need to select all okay so Calibri 11 so first of all I chose a font that does not have does not have serifs because this is meant to be read on some kind of digital device okay so it's very good if it's on digital if you're going to have somebody that's going to read on the paper then you would go to Times New Roman which is kind of the classic and you can see these little serifs so like here you can see these little edges and it's a lot easier to read but it's a lot harder to read online so the a s HP recommendation to do 12-point font Times New Roman I think is archaic in that you probably want to put in a font select all a font that's ready to be read online because I believe that's how people are going to read them I don't think it'll be terrible either way but just to make you aware 12-point versus 11 I have trouble seeing so I would prefer 12-point font but many of you are trying to write quite a bit and you're finding that a way around that or a workaround is the 11 the best way I've seen to put the date is here it doesn't necessarily look good that you put this date December 31st 2018 the very last minute that you're supposed to you know put in the recommended it honestly looks probably better if you put in like the 14th or 15th or something like that to show that ahead of the holidays you actually thought about this and you you did this you know or maybe even November I don't know but see that you've been thinking about this a while rather than hey had just got this done if it was a piece of paper it would be warm off the printer here's what I'm seeing for the addressee hmm so I just put this name better for the first name spell it right for the last because you better spell it right because your residency letter ends right here if you spell this wrong and then I put MBA pharmd be careful of doing this doctor better spell it right MBA PharmD you've just called them doctor doctor even if that is right like somebody's like pharmd PhD so P capital P little H oh come on D okay I don't think they're going to knock you if you do this so there's different styles and they're Chicago and other ways so this has no periods and this I believe is now favored by one of those styles but you can do that but be consistent don't do MBA farm period D period comma PhD because it would make more sense that you did M period B period a period like that so at least you're consistent and I'm gonna just use regular expressions or select them select just use a replace replace the period with nothing so place all there no not the rest of the document okay so that's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna take out the periods residency director give them their title whatever that title is I put Potomac River Hospital Center this is a fictional thing I grew up in North Potomac which is just darns town but if they changed the name to up the property value 900 River Road does not exist River Road does it's beautiful and then Potomac Maryland 208 54 that a real address so what we've done is we put our own information we put the date and then we've put who to whom we're going to send it dear doctor spell it right so again double-check that spelling make sure that's right because that could be a really bad one you don't want to put ladies and gentlemen you don't want to put dear residency director with so many residency applications you need to know who you're writing to or who's the head of the program and I don't think that's terribly difficult with forecasts okay we are going back to comp two some of you didn't have come to because there are colleges of pharmacy that only require common they are so heavy in anatomy physiology chemistry biology all of that stuff that they removed it and I don't know if you necessarily remember this anyway but this is what you should be doing generally you'll notice that I didn't put in whatever that beginning is hi my name is Tony and I'm from blank College of Pharmacy and I am applying to blank residency it was so good to meet you guys at a sh p national name dropped this name name dropped that name i just want to let you know that your residency is such a perfect fit for what I want okay that is there's an ACC P one there's a one that's out by UCSF I found three more that are all like that so they actually plagiarizes each other which kind of it's kind of funny but it's not this is what you want to get across you have a thesis you are making a claim over the last four years I have developed my and for all that is right in this world please do not put the numbers in there I'm simply putting the numbers in there this I'm gonna highlight them to make it even more clear that you should not put the numbers in there what I'm saying is that your letter should be so clear from your thesis statement you are making a thesis statement that I have developed clinical skills community service leadership research and teaching hmm you wanna pick I'm really sick the two or three of these that are best okay so if you are just been research intensive and you've been doing stuff since I just met a p1 that's been doing research since they were a Drake that's been doing research since her second year in college like if that's if she has that you know going in then research would be her first one I just put these in order alphabetically so clinical skills community service leadership research teaching okay to give you a framework but you put the one that one you care about the most but two is more is a big deal at where your site is if this is a hospital center research might not be there jamm there Jim might be hey what are you doing with clinical skills 208 five four there's not a ton of community service that needs to be done in this kind of Golf Course $6,000,000 home River Road area so it would really be you know okay well I see that they are definitely clinically minded they don't have an affiliation with College of Pharmacy so teaching might not be their big jam but maybe leadership is a big part anyway the you're gonna take two or three of these don't put all five but what you do want to do is when you're writing your very first one to put all five and I'll tell you why I took the GRE and I crushed it and when I say I crushed it I mean I got a 98 out of 99 on the English but I also got an 87 on math I'm basically scored in the top 5,000 out of the million people that take it because I also got a five on the the writing and what I did in the writing was it's kind of weird that your type speed actually matters but what I did in the writing was I they ask you to take a statement and make an argument for or against it and I put my four best paragraphs and I took the worst out you're going to put your five in and as I go through this with the evidence and talk about it then as you read it or ASP up other people read it they're going to be like yeah your heart's not really in that whole community service thing it seems like you just kind of did it as an afterthought or you only have one experience or something like that but wow you know you did a national leadership or Wow you know you've been teaching and mentoring for three years and it's also reflective you're gonna be like okay well this is what is really important to me and I'm kind of discovering this a template like this is meant for you to discover the answer to your thesis what is your thesis what is your claim obviously as somebody's been teaching for 10 years teaching would be the very top of it okay clinical skills would be completely absent from mine at this point in my career okay so you're saying I have developed these skills and now I hope to continue my development okay you're not saying you guys are a great fit because you have these things I want you're just saying I just want to continue to grow and I keep seeing this which is if it you are putting the entire residency program it is capitalized because it is a proper noun the Potomac River College let me let me change this the Potomac River Hospital Center its Hospital Center goodness gracious hospitals Center pgy one residency program is a proper noun capitalized if it's a proper noun if you're just saying ptui one residency program you capitalized pgy and one and residency program i've seen it as pgy one without the hyphen and with the - just be consistent it doesn't really matter nobody's gonna care okay so my first sentence is my claim and my thesis I have developed these skills my second is my intent I hope to continue my development let me actually make them different sentences so you can better see it number number two sentence - I hope to continue my development at your site and sentence three I'm going to detail the most impactful experiences and I said I will briefly detail that will be like warm rain on somebody it will feel so good to hear briefly or succinctly or and don't look quickly but that you're going to be mindful of their time of the most impactful experiences already they know you're not going to put fluff in it you're going to get the most impactful experiences and in the hopes that we might find if we're a good fit for each other what you're really saying is you know I think that we're a good fit for each other I want to date you I want you to go to prom with me I don't know if you want to go to prom with me so here here's what I think here's why I think we should go to prom together okay and that your site might be a place where I can serve it is about serving them it is not about them serving your short term long term goals I've even seen and this is the heartbreaker where the goals of the person in the letter are identical to the goals word for word in the templates where I see and maybe it's true but that just absolutely kills me it is about service to a patient and how you're going to use these five skills to do it okay unless you're doing residency and like I don't know something weird where it's not necessarily patient-centered the second part is evidence all of those examples those crap examples I'm sorry those examples that they have on the internet from these sites are giving you terrible terrible advice they are saying in my CV as you can see whoa whoa the way that somebody looks at your application is they have a rubric and they use the CV to check the boxes off to see if they should even read this once that's done and they know that you've got such a such GPA then they're like alright well let me get to know this person I know that it sounds like cover letter CV and maybe it's in that order and forecast but really it's let me get through all these CVS because there might be some people that are not even qualified then I'm gonna send these letters out to people that I want them to read it and then we can see if the evidence backs the thesis so your thesis is that hey I've developed my such-and-such and I should probably put at a very high level I don't think you have to put this in there but that should be your aim okay that you have done this at a high level and we're going to see if that's true now how do you present evidence you presented first with the story the beginning of the story the beginning of what you want to say clinically I've worked side by side with I've had a patient experience that was particularly meaningful to me the reason that you use one patient one experience is that when this is goes all the way back to your psych 101 if you took that class if people are asking for money they will make a case about a single person because you can digest a single person it's really tough to digest I helped a thousand people the person who writes a better story about one person / the person that writes a worst story about or just generically says a thousand people is actually going to have a more impactful letter okay so it was particularly meaningful to me because I am interested in okay I don't know what are you interested in for me I'm interested in the etymology of drug names and medication errors which is not necessarily clinical but it's clinically impactful okay a second impactful experience was I struggled with this difficulty so have an arc have a conflict have a success story and overcoming and then overcoming I learned what and particularly and this is the key now we say I picked your site because I'm particularly interested in your elective which mats is my experience which matches what I'm trying to do with my life because it's gonna allow me to further grow in Blanc specialty so you have written a story you have said how you have impacted other people and how it's important to you and then you have said this is how it matches your sight one two three number two again don't put these numbers I'll put them in yellow to make clear that you are not supposed to put these numbers I don't know if I should give you the template but to community service matches with part two of my thesis goes to part two here I value service to my community as someone who came from for me it would be a bilingual background a first generation college student background I'm particularly interested in helping people that are just getting in college for the very first time whose parents may not be able to help them financially may not be able to help them guide them because they've not been to college that's what matters to me that's why I work at a community college we have our average student is 25 our average student might have a kid might have a job okay so my first opportunity to serve was maybe it was as part of an organization but then later you grew from that and said hey you know what I'm I enjoyed helping in this you know 5k fundraiser we had and two years later I was leading it and I was getting the permits from the city and I was coordinating police officers and and all of this okay then it's I know that in your residency or that your residents also serve as volunteers it might not be the exact same thing but you know that there's volunteer service there number three okay yellowing it but you're not supposed to put the numbers there leadership early in my pharmacy school experience I participated maybe you were the secretary-treasurer you know master-at-arms whatever it was then you grew to this leadership role than that leadership role what I'm most proud of is and then you accomplished something in impacted people and then you're going to show where that's going to matter okay so I'm comfortable leaning I'm comfortable working with you know maybe you worked and you were the pharmacist left then you had five technicians that were asking you questions whatever it is but you showed leadership and you can help them you know maybe in your staffing requirement you'll need to do that okay presenting at the a SHP National meeting so many people have in that first sentence name dropped this name dropped that I met you at a SHP and they're gonna be like man I might have met you but that was a whirlwind I don't know who you are but what they will be impressed by is in presenting a poster at a national meeting and it was the culmination of a year-long research project but talk about the struggles where like I did vote in VAX for residency project where I wanted to see if somebody was at the voting site versus across the street in a independent pharmacy which one would you know have more impact and we found that it was five hundred percent more likely you'd get a flu shot if you were at the voting site then if you were at the independent pharmacy and so that was something that was meaningful that you're like okay well we need to set up across the street if we want to have a successful immunization or more broadly you could say we need to set up where the people are rather than having them come to us okay so flu clinics it just kind of accents that you know as pharmacists we need to get out of the pharmacy you know kind of that Indiana Jones reference if you want to be a good archaeologist you got to get at a library so the year-long research project you found that you had to change this approach but you feel confident and what you're telling him is that you can do a residency project and you're not going to need to no hand-holding and maybe you'll even get that thousand dollar stipend like I got the stipend when I was in my residency project and I got it because I wrote a clear articulate abstract and this is what I'm gonna do and this is I've worked I'm working with the wood foundation and I have these goals and it came up very well so again number four matches number four number five and teaching again you're picking two or three out of these but in teaching I began tutoring one-on-one maybe a tutor for no money maybe you just tutored your roommate or your friend but I enjoyed that then I took on this more responsibility and then more responsibility and then at your site I know that there's going to be precepting students so I've been doing something like that before I'm not gonna require much work to help okay finally is the call to action okay so what you do is in some ways you rehash your thesis my clinical service leadership research and teaching experiences don't put all five help me build a groundwork for the work to come next year you're not saying at your site you're just saying to come next year I went back and forth on this but I think you should put I hope to continue this work at the Potomac River Hospital Center let's be consistent Hospital Center pgy one pharmacy residency program capital because it's a proper noun and that we might continue this conversation in a face to face interview this is kind of touchy I know that a lot of you are like ooh do I really ask them like hey I want to meet face to face what you're doing is you're just saying hey this is what I'm asking for I'm not asking to be accepted to your program I'm just asking that we can keep talking and that I can talk to you and you can talk to me and hopefully it's a good fit I very much welcome any questions and certainly appreciate your time make sure to thank them because if they got this far that is awesome sauce you have really written later in reviewing my candidacy okay sincerely Tony Guerra from D candidate 2019 Potomac River College of Pharmacy again a fictional College of Pharmacy so I'll put this on memorizing pharmacology comm you can find it under let's go to something that is not let me find the website so I can show you and you're gonna click on more and then residency help right now there's residency recommendation help what I'll do is I'll just put this document here as a template to help you or maybe I'll actually create a second page to help you with this all right well anyway I hope this was helpful again it's really all about telling your story and you're going to tell those two or three stories that are unique to you and it's what you care about and it should be the same thing that they care about and again I can't emphasize enough it's about match how well do you fit and you need to articulate how well you fit and what you're going to do for them so I wish you the best of luck I really do want you to succeed I'm sorry that those templates are out there I'm sorry that those templates are leading you in the wrong direction that they're continuing to emphasize that it's about you and what you want to get out of it rather than what is more of a combined hey you know you've got these resources I've got these abilities I really think we would be great together so I hope this was helpful and again always email me if you've got questions