PROFESSIONAL CORRESPONDENCE

PROFESSIONAL CORRESPONDENCE

• The communication between two or more parties through professional writing.

• Reflect a person’s level of competency and professionalism.

TYPES OF PROFESSIONAL CORRESPONDENCE

• Writing Correspondence

  • Letters

  • Memorandums

  • Reports

• Electronic Correspondence

  • Emails

  • Instant Messages

  • Video Conferencing

LETTERS

• Formal communication often used for external correspondence.

• Various types of letters are sales letter, order letter, inquiry letter, cover letter, acknowledgement letter, follow-up letter, letter of recommendation, and letter of resignation.

MEMORANDUMS

• Internal documents for short, formal messages within an organization.

• Used to implement internal guidelines or procedures that the employees must follow.

• Detailed and accurate information to reach a large number of readers at the same time.

  • Heading

  • Begin with a sentence that describes the reason you are writing

  • Depending on the purpose of your memo, you may have action items for employees to complete or provide a timeline of when changes will take place.

  • Include a closing statement

  • Special Notation — notations at the bottom of the memo are used to indicate specific things to the reader.

  • Enclosure — something included with the memo

  • Attachment — supporting document attached by a paper clip, staple, etc.

EMAILS

• Common form of communication for both internal and external contacts.

INSTANT MESSAGES

• Convenient for quick, informal exchanges within a professional environment.

VIDEO CONFERENCING

• Enables real-time, face-to-face communication over a digital platform

PARTS OF A LETTER

• Heading

  • Full name and address of the sender

• Recipient’s Address

  • Full name and address of the recipient

• Salutation

  • “Dear (Prefix) (Name):”

• Body

  • Content of the letter

• Complimentary Close

  • “Respectfully/Yours truly”

• Signature

  • Signature of the sender of printed name

PARTS OF A BUSINESS LETTER

• Letterhead

  • The writer, address, and contact number

• Date

  • when it was written, placed between the letterhead and the inside address

• Inside address

  • the reader’s name, position and company, and address.

  • placed immediately below the date

• Attention line

  • used when the writer wishes to address the whole company  but wants to bring it to the attention of a particular person in the company.

• Salutations

  • refers to the writer’s formal greeting to the reader

• Body

  • the message of the letter

  • paragraphs are single spaced internally but double spaced to separate paragraphs

• Complimentary Close

  • the expression to end a letter

• Signature block

  • the signature and the typed name of the sender (All caps if not)

• Enclosure notation

  • attachments to the letter

RESUME

• A short document that is used to summarize a job seeker’s work experience, contact information, education, skills, and qualification that will support a job application.

• Does not strictly follow a specific template or format.

TYPES OF RESUMES

• Chronological

  • List work in chronological order (recent to earliest)

  • mostly preferred by employers

  • used by people who have solid work history

• Functional

  • focuses on one’s skills and experience

  • de-emphasizes employment history

  • used by people who have lapses in employment/transitioning, fresh graduates with limited work experience and have a diverse background with no clear career path.

• Hybrid/Combination

  • Details both skills and experiences (Chronological)

  • used by people who want to detail work experience to show hiring managers the type of employee they are

• Targeted

  • customized in detail to a prospective job one is seeking

  • the objective, qualifications, to educational experiences mirrors the job requirements

  • time-consuming but can generate the best results.

PARTS OF A RESUME

• Identification

  • contains the essential information about the applicant

  • Name, address, contact number,, professional email address, photo, title/current profession

• Objectives

  • objective must be concise and specific

  • state one’s desired job, field, or specific position

  • state what one hopes to accomplish once employed

  • optional

• Profile

  • summary of one’s key skills, relevant experiences, and goals for a specific job

    • key skills: soft and hard skills

    • relevant experiences (for the past 2-4 years)

    • goals: what you want/can contributed

    • Hard skills: teachable abilities

    • Soft Skills: people skills

• Education

  • brief academic background and experiences to date

  • for work experiences (most recent to the first one)

    • jobs/internships

    • volunteer work

    • name of company/institution/organization

    • position held and dates covered 

  • for educational background

    • name of school/institution/university

    • date of attendance/graduation 

    • other optional fields (minor and major    academic awards and achievements) 

• Character Reference

  • provides an account of your achievements through somebody else’s eyes

  • someone who is a professional, but not related to you

    • for students or fresh graduates: professors, advisers, partners from academic organizations 

    • for those with work experience: previous managers, supervisors, colleagues 

  • optional (but you are highly encouraged to provide one)

CURRICULUM VITAE

• “the course of your life” or CV for short

• provides a summary on one’s experiences and skills

• lengthier than resumes and include more information, particularly details related to one’s academic and research background

BIO-DATA

• means biographical data

• focuses on personal particulars, along with educational and professional experience

• typically one to three pages long

• usually follows a format