Cover Letter Samples

Nonprofit Correspondence Samples

See sample cover letters and thank-you notes that are appropriate to send to nonprofit employers.

Sales Cover Letter Sample

Not sure how to sell yourself for the job? Check out this sample cover letter for a sales job.

Sample Cover Letter for an Elementary School Teacher

Could your cover-letter writing skills use some extra help? If so, get ideas from this sample cover letter for an elementary school teacher.

Sample Cover Letter

Stumped on how to write a cover letter that will catch an employer's attention? Get ideas from this sample.

Sample Cover Letter for an IT Professional

You don't want your cover letter to read like the code you write. Get some inspiration from this sample cover letter.

Sample Cover Letter for an Unemployed Job Seeker

Your cover letter can address your unemployment situation while still playing up your experience and accomplishments. Get some ideas from this sample.

Sample Letter of Recommendation

Ever wanted to write a glowing letter of recommendation but weren't sure what it should look like? Here's an example.

Mid-Career Cover Letter Sample

Cover letters should vary depending on the opportunity and your experience, but this example will get you started.

Sample Cover Letter for a Pharmacy Technician

Going for a job as a pharmacy technician? Be sure to use your cover letter to convey your experience and training. Get ideas from this sample.

Sample Cover Letter for an Investment Banker

This sample cover letter for an investment banker conveys the candidate's qualifications and achievements.

Sample Resumes by Industry

Want to be the standout job candidate in your field? Then writing a resume that highlights your industry-specific experience, accomplishments and credentials is essential. If you need help customizing your resume to your field, check out these examples of resumes for various careers and career levels in the following industries:
  

Administrative/Support 

Art/Design/Media 

Automotive 

Education 

Engineering 

Finance/Accounting

Healthcare 

Human Resources

 Insurance 

Law Enforcement 

Manufacturing 

Marketing/PR

Nursing 

Real Estate 

Restaurant & Hospitality 

Retail

 Sales 

Science 

Technology 

Trades 

Transportation & Warehousing

Step-by-Step Guide to Negotiating a Great Salary

Step-by-Step Guide to Negotiating a Great Salary

By Kim Lankford, Monster Contributing Writer

Here's a secret: Employers rarely make their best offer first, and job candidates who negotiate generally earn much more than those who don't. And a well-thought-out negotiation makes you look like a stronger candidate -- and employee. 
"We found that those people who attempted to negotiate their salary in a constructive way are perceived as more favorable than those who didn't negotiate at all, because they were demonstrating the skills the company wanted to hire them for," says Robin Pinkley, coauthor of Get Paid What You're Worth and an associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business.
You can start laying the groundwork for your salary negotiation even before the first interview. Here's a step-by-step guide:
During the Interview Process

• Do Your Research: Before the interview, learn about the company's salary ranges and benefits as well as industry salary ranges. Also learn about the company, its competition and the industry. Then think about what you want from the job, both in terms of salary and benefits, as well as opportunity and upward mobility, Pinkley says. This information will become valuable during the interview and salary negotiation.
• Don't Talk Turkey Too Early: "You never win by talking about money early on," says Lee Miller, author of Up: Influence, Power and the U Perspective -- The Art of Getting What You Want. "The time to talk about money is when they've fallen in love with you." Before that, you're just one of many easily dismissed candidates. But once the employer has decided you're right for the job, "it becomes an issue of, ‘how are we going to make this happen?'" Miller says.
• Avoid the Salary Requirements Trap: Pinkley tells people to say: "I completely understand why this is an important issue -- you're trying to determine who you want to continue in this process, and it doesn't make much sense to pursue candidates you aren't going to get. Secondly, I know that the tendency is for people to lowball their salary range, because they don't want to get out of the pool. My preference is to figure out, independent of these issues, the degree to which there is a good fit here and the extent to which I can bring value to this organization and the extent to which I'm going to be fulfilled and involved and committed to this position. I suggest we wait to have the salary conversation until you're prepared to make an offer."
  If they still want a number, leverage your research to talk industry-standard ranges, not specific numbers.

At Time of Offer

• Strike First: Try to mention a specific salary before the employer does. This will start the negotiations in your ballpark. "The whole negotiation is based on that first offer," Pinkley says.
• Don't Commit Too Quickly: The employer often offers the job and salary simultaneously. Never say yes right away -- even if you like the offer. "I would always come back and try to get more," Pinkley says. Tell them you'll give them an answer within a certain time frame.
• Make Them Jealous: If you've been interviewing for other jobs, call those prospective employers, tell them about your offer, and see if they can speed up the interview process -- or make you an offer. Knowing you have another offer will make you more attractive to them.
  When it's time to answer the first employer, mention the other employers' interest to help boost your value. But don't make up offers. It's easy to check, and the interest alone will help you look good.
• Articulate Your Expectations: Tell the employer what you want from the job, in terms of salary, benefits and opportunity. "It may be time off, flexibility about where you work, autonomy or ownership over a particular area, it may be your title -- whatever has a perceived value to you," says Joyce Gioia, president of the Herman Group, a think tank of management consultants and futurists.
• Negotiate Extras: If the employer can't offer you the salary you want, think about other valuable options that might not cost as much. Miller always recommends asking for education, which can make a big difference in your long-term marketability.
• Quantify Your Value and Performance: Mention your value in quantifiable terms, such as how much money you saved your company and how your projects increased revenues by X thousands of dollars, Gioia says. Then tell them specifically how valuable you expect to be in your new job.

You also can add a few contingencies showing your confidence in your performance. You could ask the employer to give you a salary review after six months rather than a year or for a year-end bonus if you make a certain amount of money. "It shows that you believe in yourself and are committed to bringing what you say you can do," Pinkley says. "You believe you are going to bring significant value to the organization.

Important links for websites and blogs!!

#	Site Web Link	Author
1	James Bach's Blog	James Bach
2	Testing at the Edge of Chaos	Matt Heusser
3	Agile Testing	Grig Gheorghiu
4	Martinfowler.com	Martin Fowler
5	Tester Tested!	Pradeep Soundararajan
6	Testing Blog	Google Testing
7	Cem Kaner’s Blog	Cem Kaner
8	Miško Hevery	Miško Hevery
9	DevelopSense	Michael Bolton
10	Sara Ford's Weblog	Sara Ford
11	Steve Rowe's Blog	Steve Rowe
12	Test Obsessed	Elisabeth Hendrickson
13	Software Quality Insights	( various )
14	Exploration Through Example	Brian Marick
15	Gojko Adzic	Gojko Adzic
16	Thinking Tester	Shrini Kulkarni
17	Chris McMahon's Blog	Chris McMahon
18	JW on Test	James Whittaker
19	Software testing help	Vijay
20	Corey Goldberg	Corey Goldberg
21	Quality Frog	Ben Simo
22	Testing Hotlist Update	Bret Pettichord
23	Abakas	Catherine Powell
24	Collaborative Software Testing	Jonathan Kohl
25	Sbarber's blog	Scott Barber
26	Adam goucher	Adam goucher
27	Eric Jarvi	Eric Jarvi
28	Karen N. Johnson's blog	Karen N. Johnson
29	Test Guide	Michael Hunter
30	Curious Tester	Parimala Shankaraiah
31	Testy Redhead	Lanette Creamer
32	Antony Marcano's blog	Antony Marcano
33	All Things Quality	Joe Strazzere
34	I. M. Testy	Bj Rollinson
35	Software testing zone	Debasis Pradhan
36	PractiTest QA Blog	Joel Montvelisky
37	Practical QA	Linda Wilkinson
38	Marlena’s Blog	Marlena Compton
39	Software Testing and more	Ewald Roodenrijs, Andréas Prins
40	patrickwilsonwelsh.com	Patrick Wilson-Welsh
41	Quality Assurance and Software Testing	( various )
42	Testing Testing 1,2,3	Chan Chaiyochlarb
43	Mike Kelly's blog	Mike Kelly
44	Test this Blog	Eric Jacobson
45	Enjoy testing	Ajay Balamurugadas
46	Evil Tester	Alan Richardson
47	Tooth of the Weasel	Alan Page
48	Charlie Audritsh's blog	Charlie Audritsh
49	Maverick Tester	Anne-Marie Charrett
50	Paul Gerrard's blog	Paul Gerrard
51	shino.de	Markus Gaertner
52	Cartoon Tester	Andy Glover
53	cLabs Blogki	Chris Morris
54	Jeff Fry on Testing	Jeff Fry
55	Venkat's Blog	Venkat Reddy Chintalapudi
56	Agile Testing and Process Thoughts	Janet Gregory
57	Software Testing Stuff	( various )
58	selenadelesie.com	Selena Delesie
59	Software Sleuthing	Josh Poley
60	The Software Quality Blog	Vijay Bhaskar
61	Expected Results	Phil Kirkham
62	One of the wolves	Tim Coulter
63	Musing about Software Testing	Keith Stobie
64	Jon Bach's blog	Jonathan Bach
65	Quardev	( various )
66	Software Testing Club Blog	( various )
67	TestToTester	Sharath Byregowda
68	Agile Testing with Lisa Crispin	Lisa Crispin
69	Confessions of a Passionate Tester	Dawn Cannan
70	I am filled with solutions	Dustin Andrews
71	Software Tasting	Geordie Keitt
72	Rosie Land	Rosie Sherry
73	Still Life	Steve Swanson
74	Brian Osman	Brian Osman
75	Dhanasekar S’s Blog	Dhanasekar S
76	The Social Tester	Rob Lambert
77	QA Insight	Brent Strange
78	The Testing Blog	( various )
79	Testingminded	Steven Machtelinckx
80	John McConda's blog	John McConda
81	Software Testing	Len DiMaggio
82	Jeroen's world of Software Testing	Jeroen Rosink
83	TestingPerspective	Rahul Verma
84	Adam White	Adam White
85	Purple Box Testing	Trish Khoo
86	Lessons Learned by a Software Tester	Paul Carvalho
87	Pliant Alliance	Tim Beck
88	Testjutsu	Ben Kelly
89	Illiteration	Jared Quinert
90	Tester Testifies	Raj Kamal
91	Santhosh Tuppad's Blog	Santhosh Tuppad
92	Teknologika	Bruce McLeod
93	Creative Tester	Anuj Magazine
94	Tester Troubles	Ray Claridge
95	Thoughts on QA and Engineering	John Overbaugh
96	Quick Testing Tips	( various )
97	Cruisin QA	Brett Leonard
98	QA Hates You	The Director
99	Tester Lost Focus	Michelle Smith
100	James McCaffrey's blog	James McCaffrey

 101  Brett Pettichord                                  Brett Pettichord

Google: Android has security flaw

A security flaw has made it easy for scam artists to send phony text messages to Android phones with help of a security flaw, a report has said.

In late October, researchers at North Carolina State University alerted Google to a practice called "smishing" that can ensnare consumers in fraud. 

Google's security officials confirmed the flaw and promising to correct it. 

Within days they had incorporated a fix into the latest version of the Android operating system, Jelly Bean 4.2, and made available a security update for earlier versions. 

But for most Android phones, the fix never arrived, and for many, it never will, the Washington Post reports. 

That is because it is not clear which company, Google, the smartphone maker or the wireless carrier that sells it, bears ultimate responsibility for the costly process of getting security updates to an Android device. 

According to the paper, fixes to known security flaws can take many months to reach individual smartphones, if they arrive at all. 

Security experts said that the problem has contributed to making the world's most popular mobile operating system more vulnerable than its rivals to hackers, scam artists and a growing universe of malicious software. 

Breaches remain more common on traditional computers than on smartphones, which have been engineered to include security features not found on desktop or laptop machines, experts added. 

The report pointed out that if there was a major outbreak of malicious software, the fractured nature of the system for delivering updates could dramatically slow efforts to protect information carried on Android phones, including documents, passwords, contact lists, pictures, videos, location data and credit card numbers.

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Myths and Facts about Software Testing...

- Software Testing can not show the absence of errors


- There is no last bug in the software / application


- Maximum coverage through minimum test cases is a big challenge of testing.


- Even for simple program of loops, there can be over million paths – testable manually in million years. Domain of possible inputs is too large to test. Also, there are too many possible paths to test the program. Even if, theoretically speaking, one could design excellent test cases to detect all defects, does one have the luxury of time and resources to do so in practice?


- Preventive testing is very important. Verify documents, design, code at each stage of development to prevent errors from getting in. Use a variety of techniques for this. Code review itself throughs up many defects that may be too difficult to detect by execution of tests. On the other hand, test execution can detect errors that can not be easily detected by code reviews. Therefore, various techniques are complimentary in nature and it is only through their combined use that one can hope to detect most errors.


- Even though development tends to be given more importance than testing. A good test design is perhaps intellectually more challenging than the software design and development. Given reasonable practical limits to the quality of test design in practice, it is easy to understand that why it is difficult to uncover all defects through testing.

       

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Software Testing Myths & Facts



There are certain popular myths about the testing discipline which are deep rooted in the software development community. Over the years, with several major products shipped on time, with high quality helping keep the software maintenance costs within predicted and manageable numbers are helping shatter these myths.

Testing Myths & Facts
Herein we list some of those myths we’ve heard time and again and the facts associated with them that we really believe in:

Myth: Initiating testing activities earlier in the development cycle increases delivery time while reducing the number of features in the product.
Reality: Testing is not the time-consuming activity in a development lifecycle. Diagnosing and fixing defects are the time-consuming, bottleneck activities.

Myth: You can't test if you don't have a product to test.
Reality: Iterative testing isn't limited to testing code.

Myth: Continually regressing everything every time we change code is tedious and time consuming…but, in an ideal world, it should be done.
Reality: Regression testing doesn't mean "testing everything, every time."
Iterative regression testing means testing what makes sense in each phase and iteration. It also means modifying our coverage based on the impact of the change, the history of the product, and the previous test results.

Myth: It's not a bug -- the feature is working as designed.
Reality:The over-explanation of why the product is doing what it's doing is a common trap. Sometimes we just know too much. When defects are triaged and reviewed, we often explain away the reasons for the defect. Sometimes we tag defects as "works as designed" or "no plans to fix" because the application is actually working as it was designed, and it would be too costly or risky to make the design change. Similarly, we explain many usability concerns as "it's an external component" or "it's a bell and whistle." Our widgets or UI controls may have known limitations. Or we may even tell ourselves that "once the user learns to do it this way, they'll be fine."

Myth: A tester's only task is to find bugs.
Reality: This view of the tester's role is very limited and adds no value for the customer. Testers are experts with the system, application, or product under test. Unlike the developers, who are responsible for a specific function or component, the tester understands how the system works as a whole to accomplish customer goals. Testers understand the value added by the product, the impact of the environment on the product's efficiency, and the best ways to get the most out of the product.

Myth: We don't have enough resources or time to fully test the product.
Reality: You don't need to fully test the product -- you need to test the product sufficiently to reduce the risk that a customer will be negatively affected.

Myth: Testing should take place in a controlled environment.
Reality: The more the test environment resembles the final production environment, the more reliable the testing. If the customer's environment is very controlled, then you can do all your testing in a controlled environment. But if the final production environment is not controlled, then conducting 100 percent of your testing in a controlled environment will cause you to miss some important test cases.


   
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