How to Write a Great Cover Letter
Your cover letter is a consistent, important part of each of your professional applications. For that reason, it is crucial to nail some certain elements that will allow you to exemplify your best qualities while also showcasing your care and dedication to differentiating companies. Find out our top tips here!
- Catching Attention: First and foremost, your cover letter is your one-stop shop for catching the eye of your next employer. For this reason, we encourage you to put a lot of effort into setting yourself aside as unique while trying to do something interesting that will draw attention to your letter.
- Incorporating Personality: While it may seem like a cover letter is more like a checklist, we encourage you to keep in mind the value in it being called a “letter.” Within a letter must entail personal attributes, morals, values, and other aspects that set you apart as an individual and a candidate. With the volume of cover letters that recruiters evaluate each day, it is essential to help yourself stand out by offering a sneak-peak into your personality to the reader!
- Make it Direct: In a related point of caution, although we encourage you to incorporate your personality into your letter, we warn you of the importance of getting straight to the point. A cover letter that is too long will likely not be read all the way through, as there are too high of a volume of applicants to each job in today’s age.
- Introduction to Resume Questions: Often, when resumes display random gaps between jobs, short time periods spent at firms, or other potentially questionable characteristics, interviewers will ask you to explain your reasoning. Your cover letter is a great place to begin introducing explanations about your previous roles and responsibilities. This way, recruiters or interviewers will be able to ask you questions that allow you to elaborate on your best qualities instead of focusing on past “hiccups.”
- Showcasing Genuine Interest: Your cover letter must be customized for every different company you apply to! As easy as it may be to copy and paste your letter each time, differentiating only by company name, we promise you that it will show. Lack of detail and personalization to companies will only decrease your chances of recognition. Make sure to do some research about each new company you apply to so that you can cater your letter to their varying morals, goals, and missions.
- No Typos! We hope that this goes without saying, but a letter with any sort of grammatical error or typo will be tossed almost immediately in the rejection pile (metaphorical, of course). Remember that you are competing against dozens and sometimes even hundreds of other applicants, so any way that a recruiter can set your application aside will make their job easier.
While your cover letter is most likely not going to make-or-break your application, they are a fantastic means of letting your employer get to know you, some of your accomplishments or past challenges, your interest, and your general profile as an employee. Nailing these letters is a quality that will aid you throughout your entire career!
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First comes your cover letter, then comes the resume! What shouldn’t you include? Find out here!
