Can employers see all of my previous jobs?

Media Jobs: What exactly do employers expect to see in a cover letter?

• I was told that prospective employers don't spend more than 30 seconds on an applicant's cover letter and CV. What is the best way to capture their attention?

• Answer:

  Prospective employers quickly scan resumes/CV for keywords fitting their mental image of job requirements. The résumé should cover your positions, responsibilities, authority, supervisory experience and accomplishments. Use keywords where possible. Cover letters are quickly scanned to see if they catch the reader's interest. What each employer/reviewer (it may not be a manager by the way) expects from a cover letter is largely unpredictable if they provide no guidelines on what to address. The cover letter should briefly highlight what you bring to a prospective employer (in terms of your ability/productivity/accomplishments and how you fit their needs) while not being an repetition of your résumé. All that said, each reviewer is different except in one respect. They all look for misspellings, bad grammar, and any other gaffe. If you catch their attention via any of those or similar errors, you have no chance. At all.