After weeks of heavy job searching, you’re almost there! You’ve perfected your resume. You’ve short-listed the coolest jobs you want to apply for. You’ve even had a friend train you for every single interview question out there.But then, before you can send in your application and call it a day, you remember that you need to write a cover letter too.So now, you’re stuck staring at a blank page, wondering where to start...Don’t panic! We’ve got you covered. Writing a cover letter is a lot simpler than you might think. In this guide, we’re going to teach you how to write a cover letter that gets you the job you deserve. We're going to cover:
What Is a Cover Letter?
How to Write the Perfect Cover Letter, Step by Step
In today’s job market, transferable skills are crucial in showcasing versatility and potential to excel across industries. Learn to incorporate transferable skills in a cover letter to land your next job! Resumes are crucial for showcasing skills and experience, but when paired with a strong cover letter, they can distinguish you from a crowded field of applicants. A well-crafted cover letter allows you to highlight your value, express interest in the position and the company and emphasize transferable skills, particularly useful if you’re changing careers or lack extensive work experience. Table of Contents
What are transferable skills?
How to talk about transferable skills in a cover letter
Looking for killer cover letter templates to take your job search to another level? Search no more. The best free cover letter templates are a few scrolls away from you. In this guide:
A selection of 25+ free cover letter templates from several online resources.
Instructions on how to use these templates and where you can find more.
Pros and cons of using cover letter templates from each of these sources.
Our list of 200+ cover letter examples is perfect for all job seekers, whether you need to write one for a specific life situation (like a career change) or you’re looking for an industry-specific sample.
Your cover letter is a strong tool at your disposal during your job search. It often determines whether employers review or reject your resume. To keep your document out of the trash, use relevant cover letter samples and avoid common mistakes such as detailing every prior position in your career. How do you avoid such a mistake? How do you make your document more impressive than other candidates’ cover letters? Consider including volunteer work in your letter. In some cases, it is not a good idea to mention this information, but often it improves your chances of standing out as a remarkable applicant. Use the following tips to learn how to use this type of experience to enhance your document.
Based on interviews with industry professionals and recruitment specialists, this course helps you create a compelling CV / résumé that will get your foot in the door. Be the last they have to read - Be the first they want to call!
By the end of this course, you will have learned how to:
Once you have successfully grasped the foundation of interview success by completing our English@Work: Basic Job Interview Skills course, how you persuade others to believe that you are as good as you say you are is now the challenge. Our instructors have had a 100% success rate in getting interviews and landing a job, and we hope to share that experience with you.
By the end of this course, you will have learned how to:
prepare precise and persuasive answers to challenging questions
use verbal and non-verbal skills to impress the interviewers
perform professionally during and after interviews
Based on advice from accomplished professionals in the business, HR and academic field, we have created a course that helps you build a solid foundation to succeed in job interviews and get that ultimate call. This course will change the way you prepare for and perform in job interviews.
By the end of this course, you will have learned how to:
achieve interview success in six steps
find out how YOU can be an independent learner and become a life-long learner
stand out from the crowd using four strategies
avoid common mistakes
highlight soft and hard skills using appropriate vocabulary and expressions
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University organized a seminar series focused on green deck development, specifically designed for FCE undergraduate students. The series offers opportunities to learn about the development of green decks, relevant research, and gain exposure to the practical aspects of the industry. This PDF contains the presentation material from Dr. Mark Hsu, covering the cost-benefit analysis of green deck development.
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University hosted a seminar series focusing on green deck development, specifically designed for FCE undergraduate students. The series offers opportunities to learn about the development of green decks, relevant research, and gain exposure to the practical aspects of the industry. This PDF contains the presentation material from Prof. Eric Chui and Dr. William Chan, covering the survey on public support for the Green Deck Project.
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University organized a seminar series focused on the development of green decks. Specifically designed for FCE undergraduate students, the series offers a chance to delve into the research and practical aspects of the industry. This PDF contains the presentation material from Prof. Alex LUI, covering the project's inception and the introduction of the development process in the building industry.
The course aims to enable students to master the sounds of Cantonese and conduct basic conservations in Cantonese. It is suitable for learners of the following 3 categories:
(1) People from Hong Kong who may be expatriates, international students, ethnic minorities;
(2) People from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) who may be expatriates;
(3) People from all over the world who may be heritage speakers of Cantonese, plan to study/work in Hong Kong/ the GBA, tourists… etc.
In fact, anyone who is interested in learning Cantonese are welcomed to join this course!
The lecture commenced with a welcome speech by Prof. CHEN Qingyan, Director of PAIR, followed by a brief speaker introduction by Prof. Christopher CHAO, Vice President (Research and Innovation).
In his presentation, Prof. Brilakis first gave a brief introduction to digital twins (DT), pointing out that DT plays a central role in digital transformation. Next, he elaborated on the application of DT in the construction industry and explained how DT is involved in the planning, design, construction, maintenance and operation processes. He introduced research conducted at the University of Cambridge on inexpensive methods for generating object-oriented infrastructure geometry, detecting, and mapping visible defects on the resulting DT, automatically extracting defect spatial measurements, and sensor and sensor data modelling. Prof. Brilakis also provided examples of how these resulting DT are further exploited in design for manufacturing and assembly (DfMA), mixed-reality-enabled mobile inspection, and proactive asset protection from accidental damage. To conclude, Prof. Brilakis stated that DT, smart materials, data science, and automation & bobotics, constitute important digital assets for driving sustainability, and pointed out the future development directions in these areas.
A question-and-answer session moderated by Prof. DING Xiaoli, Director of the Research Institute for Land and Space (RILS), and Prof. WANG Yuhong, Member of RILS, followed. This session provided both the online and on-site audience with an opportunity to engage in a fruitful discussion with Prof. Brilakis.
Event date: 08/03/2024
Speaker: Prof. Ioannis BRILAKIS (University of Cambridge)
Hosted by: PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research
Neuroemergentism, (NM) is a novel framework which has sought to consider language development as involving the organization and reorganization of cognition and its underlying neural substrate. Work to support this framework comes from studies of language and cognitive development. In this talk, I will focus on two separate levels, the sensorimotor plasticity needed to adjust to new input and the cognitive flexibility needed to select between these competing sources of information. This talk will discuss both these levels with regard to the neurocognitive adaptations seen in bilinguals. This will include structural brain differences in monolinguals and bilinguals that vary in the age of second language acquisition. In the second part, of the talk work that has focused on the cognitive flexibility will be presented. This will focus on the adaptations of the basal ganglia and frontostriatal tracts as a gating mechanism crucial for selecting the correct motor response. This includes newer work which links genes associated with dopamine to cognitive and language flexibility in bilinguals. The ways in which sensorimotor plasticity and cognitive flexibility represent accurate but incomplete conceptualizations of the competitive processes involved in language and cognitive processing will be discussed. The talk will conclude with potential future directions using an NM framework.
Event date: 15/03/2024
Speaker: Prof. Arturo E. HERNANDEZ (University of Houston)
Hosted by: Faculty of Humanities
In the lecture, Prof. Batty gave an overview of the development of the science of cities in the last 50 years. Drawing on the system approach and complex theory, he explained that urban science involves top-down and bottom-up thinking; it is a systematic, complex and evolving discipline built on knowledge in social physics, economics, transportation and numerous scientific methods that yield theories. He illustrated this with city morphology examples from the UK and the Greater Bay Areas (GBA) generated by large-scale computer models. At the end of the lecture, Prof. Batty described some challenges with fractal geometry, size and scaling, networks, and building models currently faced by the field, and he suggested the way forward for the discipline. Event date: 01/09/2023 Speaker: Prof. Michael Batty
Hosted by: PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research
In the lecture, Prof. Lao will introduce his 30 years of experience in acupuncture research and share his witness in the United States from exploration in early years to the accessibility in the current healthcare system. Prof. Lao will also share his opinion on the challenges and difficulties in acupuncture clinical research. Event date: 8/12/2023 Speaker: Prof. LAO Lixing Hosted by: PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research
Smaller, faster-charging batteries are the answer for affordable and sustainable electric vehicles (EVs) for everyone, everywhere. The ability to quickly refill energy is profoundly important in order to reduce EV cost and demand for critical minerals. In this talk I will present asymmetric temperature modulation (ATM) approach to enabling 10-minute fast charging of energy-dense Li-ion batteries in any temperatures (even at -60°C) while still delivering remarkable cycle life. Recent disastrous events at EV charging stations caused by an arctic blast in Chicago will be given as an example of the dire need for quick energy refill in the extreme cold. Battery fast charging must also work in hot summers along with high-temperature stability of cycling and storage. We shall present novel thermal management concepts for extreme fast charging in both extreme cold and hot conditions. Overall, our development points to a new paradigm of battery design and thermal management without having to trade-off among fast charge, safety, lifetime, and cost. Event date: 27/02/2024 Speaker: Prof. WANG Chao-Yang Hosted by: PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research
I will discuss how co-speech (i.e., speech-accompanying) gestures relate to language and conceptualisation underlying language. I will focus on “representational gestures”, which can depict motion, action, and shape or can indicate locations. I will provide evidence for the following two points. Various aspects of language shape co-speech gestures. Conversely, the way we produce co-speech gestures can shape language. I will discuss these issues in relation to manner and path in motion event descriptions, clause-linkage types in complex event descriptions, and metaphor. I will conclude that gesture and language are parts of a "conceptualisation engine”, which takes advantage of unique strengths of spatio-motoric representation and linguistic representation.
Event date: 26/02/2024
Speaker: Prof. Sotaro Kita (University of Warwick)
Hosted by: Faculty of Humanities
The relationship between language experience and cognitive control (e.g., working memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility) could be very well illustrated by the cognitively demanding language experience of interpreting training. A series of our empirical studies with interpreting students (see DONG 2023 for a review), together with studies with professional interpreters in the literature, suggest that interpreting training may first enhance students’ working memory (WM) updating ability and then WM spans, with probable some decline of WM updating ability between the shift from the two WM abilities. Similar patterns may appear in other cognitive control functions, such as cognitive flexibility (first with switching cost reduced and then with mixing cost reduced) and multi-tasking coordination. These results could be explained by the task features of interpreting (including task schemas and their cognitive loads) (see DONG & LI 2020), suggesting a close and dynamic relationship between language experience and cognitive control.
Event date: 4/12/2023
Speaker: Prof. Yanping Dong (Zhejiang University)
Hosted by: Faculty of Humanities