Listing experience on resumes and cover letters

iSkate

when I want to describe my experience in a reusme or cover letter is it right to list only work experience? Or can I list how long i've dealt with a program/os/etc? I ask this because I have only a year of professional experience, but i know XP very well-i used it since the day it came out (which was when i was in high school)( i would remove viruses, search through directories, and just play around with it). I mean even Office, which I used in school a lot of times. Would that give me a few years of experience??? Is it fair to list that on my Resume?

I asked a tech recruiter and she said that i shouldn't list this because there is no way to reference the experience. But still, I think that it does count for something--it's not like i magically learned XP this year, i've been using it.

What do you guys think?

JDMurray

Don't put anything in the cover letter that's necessary for interpreting your resume. When I get a resume on my desk, I never read the cover letter because I know it's just a sales job by the applicant (or his/her recruiter) or an HR routing slip. I want to spend my time reading the actual "meat" that's written in the resume itself.