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COVER LETTER BASICS
You prepared a great resume and now need to sell it to a Human Resource Manager. What you require is a cover letter that compliments your resume and that provides all the information that piques interest, but does not give the entire story away. A cover letter resumes your story line and makes employers keen to discover more about you. After employers read your cover letter, they will be eager to read the rest of the story in your resume and then decide whether they like it or not. Many times you can read that cover letters are not very important in comparison to resumes but the truth is that a carefully written cover letter sprinkled with a few proven, magical marketing ingredients can fill your calendar with job interviews.
What you should consider when
writing a cover letter:
Your resume and cover letter must be consistent in appearance and
aesthetically pleasing. Format your one page letter using short
paragraphs, bullet points, and white space to make it easy to read. Use
the same heading and fonts in each and when "snail mailed" use a
high-quality printer and paper.
2. Explain what you want
Be specific when you explain what you are asking for! Are you interested
in a specific position or inquiring about future employment
opportunities or just in a summer internship opportunity? Tells the potential employer why you are especially
interested in his or her company
and make a clear declaration of your job objectives. Also, cover letters
are most effective when they are addressed to a specific person in order
establish a personal connection with the reader of your letter as
quickly as possible. As a general rule, always use the hiring manager’s
name in the salutation. If you don’t know a contact name you should
check in the companies home page or call the companies secretary to get
this information. Avoid wherever possible letters addressed to "To Whom
It May Concern" or "Dear Sir or Madam".
3.
How did you learn about
the organization or the open position?
Did a friend tell you about this job or did you see an ad in the
internet or newspaper? If someone suggested that you apply for this
position it is appropriate to mention the name of this person.
4. Market your resume
If an employer is unconvinced by your cover letter, he or she may never
even give your resume a chance. The essential function of the cover
letter is to convey your qualifications, as well that you will be in
touch and that you are extremely interested in obtaining the open
position. Consider your cover letter as a Sales Letter of your resume.
5. Explain why you are the best candidate
Present your qualifications in a way that you
convince the recruiter that you're a good fit for the job.
Presenting your qualifications be as
specific as possible, using examples.
In order to find all relevant elements of your background (education,
experience, leadership, etc.) you need to research as much as possible
about the organization and the open position. Use the internet (company
homepage), business and financial magazines, business sections of
newspapers or your professional and personal network. Ask
yourself the following questions and include as much as possible of this
information into the body of your cover letter to create a winning sales
pitch:
6. Show personality
Give the employer a sense of your personality through your writing
style, direct statements about your character, motivation, enthusiasm,
communication skills or testimonial
references.
7. Consider any information specifically requested
Provide or refer to any information like availability date that is
requested in the job advertisement and
that is not covered in your resume.
8. Write
a powerful closer
The best way for your cover letter to initiate action is a confident request for an interview. Use wherever possible a proactive approach and instead of the standard closer "I look forward to hearing from you” it’s better to take the initiative to follow up, saying something like, "I will contact you in the next two weeks to see if you require any additional information regarding my qualifications" or "I will call your office next week to see when an interview can be arranged". If you are writing a letter of inquiry (i.e. not applying to a specific job opening), you might close with something like, "I will contact you in two weeks to learn more about upcoming employment opportunities with (name of organization)."
TOOLS TO WRITE A POWERFUL COVER LETTER In the following, we present examples of Lead-In grabbers, body sales pitches and powerful closers helping you to write your cover letter. Much more examples you can find in the Amazing Cover Letters Creator, a software package that helps you to create a cover letter that not only is an attachment to the resume but a sales letter that makes employers keen to discover more about you. Click here to learn more. If you feel that you still need more help, check out our review of Professional Cover Letter and Resume writing and editing services.
Powerful
Lead-In Examples
Due to the importance of presenting a powerful
lead-in, see below some examples of standard formats you might use to
start with your cover letter.
Create Body as Sales Pitch
Include a bulleted area in the body of your letter to emphasize accomplishments pertinent to your targeted job. This should include any specific experience, skills, or accomplishments that mesh with the requirements of the new job. Not only does this break up large blocks of text that can be daunting to read, but it also draws the eye toward the most important part of the cover letter — what you have to offer. This data should be bulleted, rather than presented in a solid block of text. The human eye is drawn to bulleted areas, and they summarize your qualifications in an easy-to-read format. Here’s an example: “…As my enclosed resume indicates, my background includes more than two decades of service at U.S. Flight with significant experience in:
In addition to the above skills, I can also offer your firm:
Powerful Closer
Don’t forget to close with a
confident request for an interview as this is the best way for your
cover letter to initiate action.
Always initiate further action
at the end of a cover letter. A proactive closing indicates that you
will call within a few days to see if a time might be scheduled to meet.
To wait for a hiring manager to take that first step is to risk losing
the opportunity to another candidate.
If a
job description asks that you not call, however, it’s in your best
interest to respect their wishes.
Examples for powerful closers are:
If you cannot figure out the
telephone number of the employer even after thorough investigation,
close with a little bit more aggressive marketing in order to incentive
the reader to contact you right away. Use for instance closings like:
"Mr. Smith, I'll be honest.
Although I have submitted several applications within the glass
manufacturing industry, I am most interested in working as a Quality
Assurance Analyst for Vidrio Glass. Please contact me as soon as
possible so that we can nail down employment details." "As your quality manager, I will cut client complaints to a fraction of what it is now. Please get me on the job before this problem hurts your company image. I can be reached at ….. (telephone number)."
"Please call me for an interview. I feel confident our meeting will cut
your interviewing of other candidates dramatically."
(Note: the contents of your
letter might best be arranged into four paragraphs. Consider what you
need to say and use good writing style).
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