Dear sir or madam,

Allow me to pass along some compliments I have heard about your company.

About your jobs:

“Fantastic.” 

“Above average.” 

“Challenging.” 

“The latest technology.”

About your staff:

“Very intelligent.”

“Very helpful.”

“Lots of fun.” 

“Always willing to help.”

“Managers are very nice and very apt.”

Those quotes are why I am applying to your firm.  It clearly has earned the respect of the students who have gone before me.  Your staff must truly understand the technology creation process.  Not content to just offer a great work environment, you also give sme the chance to explore two new worlds:  finance and potentially New York or London.  Wow!

But enough about you – what about me?  I am Colin Dellow, an upper-year software engineering student.  I have worked with a variety of technologies – see my applicable buzzwords section for an example of the various tools and platforms that I have used in my previous projects.  While I know I still have much to learn, I am now looking for an employer that can teach me more than just technical skills. 

I have had a latent interest in the financial world for a long time.  My first two work terms, at Arius Software Corporation, ultimately awoke these interests for good.  While at Arius I led a development team which extended a complex web framework and an N-tiered investment brokerage compliance application which was built on that framework.  The work, involving Java, C#, XML, SOAP, and a number of different databases, was challenging and interesting, but offered little chance to really learn about the financial industry.

Please review my attached resume.  It follows an unorthodox format – but I believe it conveys who I am quite well.  I would love to meet with you at your convenience and allow us to learn more about whether or not we would be a great fit.

Sincerely,

Colin Dellow

COLIN LESLIE DELLOW

or, University of Waterloo Student #20124248

or, 3A Software Engineering Student #23

or, cldellow

LOCATION

1512B 300 Regina St N, Waterloo, ON  N2J 4H2  

phone: (519) 489-1020  email:  cldellow@gmail.com  web: http://cldellow.com/

EDUCATION

Candidate for Bachelor of Software Engineering (Honours)

University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON              Sept 2003 – present

• Relevant courses: Concurrent and Parallel Programming, Human-Computer Interaction, Software Abstraction and Specification
• 104% - Top mark on CS 133 final project of a pseudo-3D Java garden simulation
• 98% - More-than-doubled the CS 241 class average on final project of a compiler for a toy language using Java/JLex/JCup

APPLICABLE BUZZWORDS (Inquire for more details.)

Java, C#, Linux, C, Sockets, PHP, Perl, VB.NET, Cocoon, ASP.NET, XML, XSLT, HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, ODBC, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MySQL, Access, XML:FO, CVS, Subversion, N-tiered Systems

WORK EXPERIENCE

Co-Founder

OARBS Software Corporation, Waterloo, ON July 2005 – present

• Migrated legacy application from VB/ASP/Access to .NET with PostgreSQL DB
• Worked with customers to enhance product
• Webmaster of corporate site at http://oarbs.com/
• Pursued and successfully completed freelance projects from analysis to deployment worth over $7,000

Senior Enterprise Java Developer

Arius Software Corporation, Waterloo, ON                  May – Aug 2004, Jan – Apr 2005

• Worked with VP of Product Development in architecture design discussions
• Led team of six developers in day-to-day development, testing and debugging
• Retrofitted AJAX capabilities to legacy Java codebase
• Developed Extract, Transform, Load tool for stress testing and importing data
• Extended company’s patented web framework, including parts of its compiler, layout engines, and integrated development environment (IDE)
• Migrated company’s largest customer’s data to new version of product

LIFE HIGHLIGHTS SO FAR

• Number of multi-threaded C sockets applications written by age 14: 1
• Number of same which received acclamation in its field: 1
• Highest Scrabble score in a two-player game: 391
• Most Kraft Dinner consumed in one sitting: 1.4 L
• Number of MBAs I’ve interviewed for a job position by age 20: 1
• Best comment from TA on my work: “Virtually devoid of course content.”