Dear Hiring Manager,

Please accept my resume for the campus tours coordinator and liaison officer position being staffed within McMaster University.

Essential Qualifications:

Education – A secondary school diploma or an acceptable combination of education, training and/or experience:
I graduated from McMaster University in 2009 with a Bachelor’s degree in English and Philosophy. In 2010, I also obtained my Bachelor's of Education from York University. I currently work in the education field but am looking to make the transition into a field more directly related to public service, as that is my passion. I am currently working on my Masters degree in Langauges and Literacies at the University of Toronto.

1) Experience providing service to the public in an environment dealing with clients
I have experience providing service to the public in an environment dealing with clients. For six years I have worked as an elementary school teacher. During this time, I have dealt with students, parents, teachers and administrators, ensuring that all of their needs are met collectively and individually. I had to ensure that my lessons corresponded to the Ontario curriculum but also engaged my students and that they fully comprehended what they needed to. For example, if I was teaching writing, I had to be sure that the level of writing corresponded to the suitable criteria for the grade level within the curriculum but that I was also teaching this in a manner catered to numerous learning needs within my classroom. Through constant communication with parents I had to make sure that they were satisfied with my services (ie: what their children were learning) as well as the role that I played in their childrens' lives. I had to be certain that this role was a positive one. Finally, through my work with my fellow teachers and administrators, I had to be certain that administrators were satisfied with the results the school as a whole was achieving and that my fellow teachers and I worked at a similar pace with all of our students and that we ensured cross-curricular connections in all subject areas.

2) Experience in providing general administrative support services in an office setting 
I have experience providing administrative support services in an office setting. For one year, I worked as an office assistant in an optician's office. During my time in this position, I took care of various administrative tasks in the office. First and foremost, I helped clients choose frames, processed their order and made sure it was properly catalogued within our files. Also, I regularly corresponded with insurance companies, ensuring that all of the necessary paperwork was in order for each individual claim. For example, when a client came in to find a new frame, I was their starting and ending point. I would be the one who would book the appointment with the optometrist, upon receiving the prescription I would help the client find a suitable frame and finally I would handle all of the necessary paperwork that was required from the insurance company. It was also my responsibility to telephone clients and remind them of frame pickups as well as appointments they may have had with the doctor. Finally, it was my responsibility to keep the stock up to date and order new items as need be. I would regularly keep track of all of the frames we had in the store, catalogue them and as they were sold I would place new orders for whatever may have been necessary.

I meet all essential education and experience criteria pertaining to this position. I have over six years experience providing public services in various work settings. As a great people person, I excel at providing guidance and support, orally and in writing. I have the ability to work autonomously but also enjoy working in a team setting. I find it essential to plan and prioritize my responsibilities in order to achieve maximum productivity within the expected deadline. I work well under pressure with changing priorities by processing a variety of requests within the expected service standard time lines.

I am a dependable, hard working person and take pride in my work. I respect the diversity of my surroundings, and demonstrate excellent judgement and tact. I am a motivated, diligent and well organized employee seeking advancement opportunities in a challenging and dynamic work environment.

For the above mentioned reasons, I believe I am a strong candidate for this position being staffed. Thank you in advance for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you to discuss potential career opportunities within McMaster University.

Sincerely,

Ivana Stanisavljevic

Throughout my college years, I had volunteer experience at JC Blair Hospital (in PA). The first volunteer site was the Dietary department, where I did typing, printing, photocopying, running all kinds of errands, supplying the entire office machine, and even fixing the mechanical problem with the machines. Not only I did office work but also coordination work such as greeting patients, talking to them about their daily life, walking them through the dietary menus, asking them about dietary issues, and helping dietitians to correspond to patients. I also volunteered in the Children Partial Program at the hospital. The Children Partial Program is where practitioners intervene children with behavioral issues. My responsibilities were to eat with the children in the cafeteria, to help the children to understand school materials (math and English), and to prevent the children from misbehaving. From these volunteer experiences, I learned that actively and genuinely interacting with individuals is very helpful for them to be mentally stable and behave appropriately, and I gained much knowledge of how to approach people and make them feel comfortable in multiple setting.

I had studied in the states for 8 years from high school to graduate school. Throughout this time, I often experienced caucasians' tendency to look down upon international students like me. In order to be friends with them, I had to put up with their jokes about my country and ethnicity, and this may have shaped me to react to any their negative name-calling with a positive and calm attitude toward them. As I became more used to these types of situations, I developed into a more flexible and easy-going person. Because of this new enlightened attitude, I was able to form trusting and lasting relationships with many American students, and I also made friends of many other Europeans and international students, regardless of their classes and majors. People may have thought that I am stupid and wondered why I put up with all the racism assaults to make friends, but in result I could develop myself to be flexible with any possible discriminated situation in the future.

I have three strengths in terms of teaching.
First one is creativity. I can constantly think of new and interesting ways to conceptualize ideas and planning new method to teach students effectively. For example, I research and make a possible speaking question which may appear in real TOEFL test. So i can challenge my students to think and borad their perspective more to be ready for most of the speaking prompt.
Second one is attention. I generally ask students why they choose this answer or why they speak certain contents, so i can have them interact with me and engage in class. If i see certain student having difficulty in catching up with lecture, I try to customize my course pace for the student.
Third one is humor. Since i believe that humor helps solidify student learning, I often use celebrity issue or joke for students to stay concentrated and form a lasting memory about lecture content.

With these strengths, I am confident that I can do my best to maximize any opportunity in any given situation at your company, and I strongly believe that I am capable of going through many obstacles ahead of me in terms of work or personal issues at your company.