Week 11: How to change someone’s mind

Download the week 11 lesson plan as a Word document.

Download 10 fake resumes for the participation activity.

• Fake Resume 1
• Fake Resume 2
• Fake Resume 3
• Fake Resume 4
• Fake Resume 5
• Fake Resume 6
• Fake Resume 7
• Fake Resume 8
• Fake Resume 9
• Fake Resume 10

Download the week 11 interactive lecture as PowerPoint slides.

Download the week 11 H5P interactive lecture by clicking the “reuse” button.

Download the week 11 interactive lecture audio recording.

Student notes:

This week, we’re thinking about persuasion. Your readings will give you a sense of general persuasive strategies, then your interactive lecture will show persuasion in action by focusing on cover letters and resumes.

This week, you will:

• Read Chapter 8 in your textbook. I’ve also included an optional reading that’s specific to cover letters and resumes.
• Complete the interactive lecture or attend the optional weekly session.
• For your participation activity, you’ll be playing the role of a hiring manager. In this participation activity folder, you’ll find 10 fake resumes for an administrative assistant position. The average hiring manager spends 6 seconds looking at a resume. In the first step, you’ll look at each resume for about 6 seconds, then decide if it’s a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ In the second step, you’ll work with your group to pick 2 candidates to hire, then write a short paragraph about how the candidates used persuasion. Post your paragraph to the participation activity forum.
• For your bonus activity, you’ll pick one resume and pretend your friend wrote it and has asked you for advice on how to improve it. Using your peer review skills, write a few paragraphs to your friend explaining what’s persuasive about their resume and what they need to improve on.
• Complete Question of the Day.

Optional reading: https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/businesswriting/part/chapter-17-communicating-for-employment/

Participation Activity Forum

This activity will be done in your group. It has two parts.

Part 1: For the first part, your group is going to get a chance to be a hiring manager. In the folder, you’ll find 10 fake resumes of people who’ve applied for a job as an administrative assistant. The average hiring manager looks at a resume for 6 seconds, so take 1 – 2 minutes to look at all 10 resumes. Working as quickly as you can, sort the resumes into ‘yes’ or ‘no.’

Part 2: As a group, discuss your top picks and select 2 people to interview. You can look more closely at the resumes that you said ‘yes’ to. Write a short paragraph about which candidates you selected to interview and why. Did everyone in the group pick the same resumes? If there were different opinions, how did you decide? What about the 2 candidates you selected persuaded you to interview them? Post this is in the participation activity forum.

Instructor note:

You can customize or change this assignment to suit your needs or have students bring in their own early drafts of their resumes.

Student notes:

Bonus Forum

Pick one of the resumes that you studied for the participation activity. Pretend that this is your friend’s resume, and they have asked you for feedback. Using your peer review skills, tell your friend what’s persuasive about their resume and how they could make it more persuasive.