What examples can I use for “attention to detail” in my cover letter or CV?

Question

As a student I'm applying for a student role within my University, or College as known in the USA, and one of the skills it requires is attention to detail.

Unfortunately, I've not had much work experience so I'm somewhat stuck to what example to use. I was considering of using the way I ask questions on Stack Overflow, by providing suitable code, using headings to separate texts and explaining what the problem is as clear and concise as I can. I've linked one of the questions below. It seems a bit silly to me to use that example, though, but I want to express how I like to take time and care to consider how someone else would interpret what I would say. On the other hand, this post was somewhat rushed because I have somewhere to go, so I apologise for any lack of attention to detail.

Example Question

Answer 1

I think a STackOverflow reference is GREAT! But then those of use that love StackExchanges are going to think that. :)

I do, in fact, list my participation as an interesting community involvement item on the end of my resume. I link to my profile and mention what areas I do particularly well at question-answering (since that's my main involvement around here). If you haven't done a ton of answering, you may also point out some particularly interesting work - like your example above.

A cover letter is usually a summary and doesn't get too heavy on the details. What you may want to say is that you are:

• passionate about solving problems by listening to the real needs of the people with who you collaborate
• focused on getting it right, and aware that small details can have a big impact

And then gently mention that one place you've practiced these skills is StackOverflow as can be seen from the details in your resume. I'm angling gently away from "I have a great attention to detail" as a term or general phrase to describe yourself, because my experience has been that "attention to detail" can cut both ways. Attention to detail is great when the details are crucial. But knowing when to see the big picture and gloss over a few details is also important. So phrasing it as knowing how to use details to get good work accomplished is quite a bit more powerful and moves the reader away from a vision of a guy who is counting the grains of sand on a beach while everyone else is trying to make a sand castle.

The other trick is covering the fact that your submission may or may not exist in electronic form in the company. A hip young company almost certainly will keep resumes primarily in electronic form. But a bigger company with a more old-school system may still be passing resumes by paper. Even in a big, well networked, computer-oriented firm, the last thing to be updated can often be the HR systems. So some poor manager may be looking at a really long URL or a URL that was a hyperlink, but is now pure text and he's wondering what on earth you mean by "Example Question"

If you really want to highlight work that is accessed electronically try:

Contributor to Stack Overflow - Brownish Monster at www.stackoverflow.com, particularly interesting work expressed in "Why are there random characters appearing in my decrypted text?"

That will make it relatively easy to get to your user profile. Also it's easy to keep this fresh - if you should have other interesting highly voted answers, they'll show up in your profile.

Answer 2

What examples can I use for “attention to detail” in my cover letter or CV?

As a student I'm applying for a student role within my University, or College as known in the USA, and one of the skills it requires is attention to detail.

1. Make sure your grammar and spelling are perfect.
2. If at the same University, go talk with the person(s) hiring for the role prior to applying. Ask about the job, have questions and a notepad to take notes, etc. If not same university, try to call (if possible - most universities have phone numbers of staff/faculty online) and do the same thing.
3. Reference when you write your cover letter. Bonus points if you are able to combine information you learned into the cover letter.

In your case, I would not put your StackOverflow profile on a resume, for the following reasons.

• People familiar with StackOverflow are more likely to look at it than others and you do not really have an overly impressive profile as people will likely judge it very quickly based on total reputation
• People unfamiliar with it will see "Brownish Monster" and this is not necessarily the most professional to give off to a non-SO familiar person
• Most of your questions have comment trains asking clarification - I'm not sure you would give the impression you want to give (in fact the opposite is entirely possible)

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Also, assuming you get to the interview stage, you can show attention to detail very easily:

• Bring a notepad and take notes during the interview
• Bring prepared and printed questions

Probably 99% of people don't do those and both give a strong sense of attention to detail.