I Don't Remember Seeing Anything about Cover Letters in Cliffs' Notes
"Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different." -Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
By sending a well-written cover letter with your resume, you can differentiate yourself and assist employers in "discovering" you.
Cover letters are essential. They're sort of like the first project or paper you turn in to a professor in that they go a long way in contributing to that first impression you make on a potential employer.
"I recommend every resume have a cover letter," says career counselor Susan Schubert of Schubert & Associates. "The cover letter acts as a bridge between the applicant and the resume." The cover letter demonstrates your interest in a company and your desire to work there, and it influences the way employers perceive your application.
"I don't feel warmly about resumes without cover letters," says John Stone, manager of college relations and recruiting programs at Chrysler. "I do look at them, but I don't see them as serious attempts."
Writing an effective cover letter requires thought, skill and planning. It also requires an overall sense of direction. You need to know why you're writing a cover letter and what you expect to get out of it.
As we discussed in the chapter on resumes, employers want to know why they should hire you. They want to know enough about you as a person to be able to answer that critical question: "What distinguishes you from other candidates?"
Answering this question for employers is the primary reason for writing a cover letter. You want to sell yourself and your abilities. You want to highlight the strongest points on your resume and point out special achievements.
As one career counselor explains it, cover letters provide you with another opportunity to promote yourself.
"A cover letter is crucial as your own marketing tool," says career counselor Marilyn Goldman of Horizons Unlimited. "The cover letter is a restatement of your resume in a different format." The cover letter also tells employers in very specific terms exactly the type of job for which you're looking. That sounds basic, but your major and your resume don't always reflect the type of job you want or the type you will end up with down the road. Did I hear a sigh of relief from all those Anthropology and Spanish Studies majors?
If you have a liberal arts degree, you can pursue a wide variety of careers. It can be difficult for busy employers to know exactly what you're looking for simply from your resume. Here's where the cover letter makes a difference. From your cover letter, employers learn where to steer your resume or where to file it if there aren't any jobs available in that area at a given time.
"A cover letter is important," comments Terri Goslin Jones, director of employment at Perpetual Bank. "Without one, we don't know where to forward a resume."
What’s in a Cover Letter?
A cover letter, like any other letter, includes an introduction, a body and a closing. The introduction explains who you are, what you want and why you're writing the letter.
The body describes your background and experiences and states why you are well-suited for the job you're seeking. The closing gives you a chance to take an active role and tell the employer when you will be back in touch.
The cover letter follows the basic business letter format. Of course, even the best summer jobs don't include a lot of business letter writing, so don't be discouraged if it takes a little time for you to master the layout of a business letter. This chapter will help you feel a lot more comfortable with the style.
How Long Is A Cover Letter?
One of the first dilemmas when you start to write anything is determining the length. In general, the shorter your cover letter, the better.
I remember when I wrote my first "real" cover letter. It was for a summer internship in Washington, D.C. while I was still a sophomore in college, so I guess I can use lack of experience as an excuse for writing what I now realize was the most pathetic attempt at a business letter anyone has ever seen. Being a novice to the business letter concept, I thought you had to give the person you were writing your basic life history before you really got into the meat of the topic. You don't want to rush into anything.
I started the letter by introducing myself. While introductions are necessary to some extent, I pretty much gave a life summary in the opening paragraph. I told them where I went to school and how I came to select that school.
Several pages later, I got around to explaining that I'd like to apply for an internship if they didn't mind. This was after explaining at length why I wanted to spend the summer in Washington (I couldn't face the dismal bore dom of a dry, hot summer in my hometown), why I was interested in this particular internship (a lot of people from my school had similar internships every summer) and how I thought I would benefit from the experience (who doesn't benefit from having a great summer job?).
I had the right idea, and I was selected for the internship, but I went a little overboard with the background. So, to avoid a similar source of future embarrassment, keep your cover letters short.
The opening should be a one or two sentence paragraph. The body can range from two to four paragraphs. It's the heart of your cover letter, and it takes up the most space. The closing paragraph is roughly the same length as the opening, perhaps one or two sentences.
Cover letters should never be longer than one page. According to one career counselor, an overly long cover letter is one of the first places an applicant loses points in job hunting.69 "Your cover letter should be brief and to the point," explains General Electric's Peter Bowen. "It shouldn't be five pages long."
''What Do I Talk About in a Cover Letter?''
There are two schools of thought as to what you should focus on in your cover letter.
Some career counselors and employers think you should talk mostly about yourself, explaining why you're the best person for the job. Others believe you should talk mostly about the employer, referring to their needs and demonstrating what you know about the company.
Successful cover letters contain a little bit of both approaches. I recommend writing primarily about yourself, because writing about the employer requires considerable time and research.
You probably don't have time to do extensive research. Fortunately, you can wage an equally successful and productive job hunt even if you keep in-depth research on potential employers to a minimum. Of course, many employers are offended by a letter that's clearly part of a mass mailing you sent to 500 or so of your favorite companies.
"A cover letter shouldn't give the sense it is addressed to "Dear Occupant," explains Stone.
Just as you discard a lot of the junk mail that comes your way, employers frequently have the nerve to take the same attitude toward the piece of art that is your cover letter. You therefore need to find a balance between making each cover letter so unique that you have no time to do anything but write cover letters, and making each cover letter so generic that employers immediately discard them.
Luckily, there are a lot of employers who want to hear about you, rather than about what you think their company needs. "I prefer to see a student use a cover letter to show me what he or she has done in a job or community experience as opposed to what the student can do for Ford," says Ford's Darrell Washington.
To the time-conscious job hunter, that's good news. Not only is it easier to talk about your skills, it can appear presumptuous to talk about what a company needs. Unless you've spent a significant amount of time reading about a company and you have a background in business or marketing, you probably don't really know what it needs. If you write a letter that talks about the company and you're not quite on target, you will likely lose the chance to interview there.
Let Me Introduce Myself
The first section of the cover letter tells exactly why you're writing the employer and what it is you're looking for. You want to convince employers to read your letter and to look at your resume. Therefore, you need to slip the first positive reference to yourself into the opening paragraph.
For example, it's better to say;
"I recently graduated from the University of Alaska with a 4.0 in engineering, and I would like to work in your plastics manufacturing plant"
Than to say:
"I am writing in response to your ad in the Daily Tribune for engineers to work in your plastics manufacturing plant. I recently graduated from college, and I am interested in working for your company."
As you promote yourself, try to give the employers only the bare facts. Don't get bogged down with details as to how you learned about the job or where you saw it advertised. The distinction between the first and second openings is subtle, but it sets the tone for your entire letter. Think of every sentence of the cover letter as an opportunity not only for you to tell the employers what you want, but for you to tell the employers why they should want you.
I know, your clear mastery of college social life and your impressive roster of upper level courses should be enough to satisfy anyone, but these employers can be slow. You’ve therefore got to reiterate your strong points.
In the example above, the accomplishment to which you refer in the first sentence is portrayed more vividly when you open your letter with it than when you wait for three paragraphs to mention it.
Perhaps your GPA wasn't that great, so you can't refer to it in your opening sentence, but you've worked for three summers at Yellowstone National Park. You're now looking for a job with an environmental issues lobbying group. Rather than saying:
"I have always been interested in wildlife preservation, and I would like to work in the position you advertised,"
You could say:
"I am interested in working as a staff consultant with your organization, and I believe the three summers I spent working on preservation issues at Yellowstone National Park qualifies me for the job you have available."
Unfortunately, not every job for which you apply ties in with your own experiences. Of course, a lot of unqualified people seem to do just fine in their jobs, but that's probably not a good argument. If your life history doesn't match up with the job you want, keep the opening of your cover letter short so you72 can move rapidly to discussing your skills in the body of the letter.
You can see now that the opening paragraph is essential. If you begin in the right vein, you can use the opening paragraph to set yourself apart from other candidates.
I’m Just the Person You're Looking For-Really!''
The second section of your cover letter, the body, gives specific examples to illustrate why you're a good candidate for the job.
The body of the letter should only have three or four main thoughts outlined in three or four paragraphs. The fact that you'd pay them to hire you probably shouldn't be included.
The body may have one paragraph on a job you've held and one on an honor or award you've won. In this section, you can pick up where you left off in the opening paragraph. For example, if you've already mentioned a specific job, talent or academic experience, develop it more fully here.
Give yourself two or three sentences to say what was significant about that experience and how it relates to the job for which you're applying.
If you haven't gotten into anything specific yet, this is the place to do it. Of course, you probably thought you had a pretty exciting life until you tried to write about it in a cover letter.
Fortunately, even if you didn't make the cover of Time magazine at a young age, you can still write an interesting cover letter about yourself and your abilities.
Writing an exciting cover letter requires you to relate your skills to the job for which you're applying, whether you acquired these skills through an impressive internship or through some mundane college experience. For example, you’re starring role in a college play or your involvement with student government, does not, on the surface, appear relevant to your hopes for a career in banking.
If you can mention that the skills you learned in the theater make you a better business person or that your tenure as vice president of the student government association taught you how to motivate those working for you, you've related your abilities to what the employers are looking for. And you haven't had to stretch too hard to do it.
Often, employers filling entry level positions with recent college graduates don't really care how applicants developed their talent. They just care that applicants have the necessary skills. Most employers are interested in all aspects of your collegiate experience, and will take you seriously even if you need to discuss extracurricular activities to demonstrate your abilities.
Ford's Washington says, "I encourage students to show they've been involved. When we see someone who was the president of some kind of student organization, which is a good sign. We're looking for leadership."
This is true of most employers. However, there are some cases where talking about the college tennis team or your enthusiasm for adventure aren't sufficient. If you can't make your activities relate to the job in some way, don't force it. This is one part of writing cover letters those trips up a lot of recent graduates.
"Don't try to torture a connection," advises Dr. Ray Harrison of Manchester. "When students respond to an ad to sell nuclear submarines and talk about their experience waiting tables, it's a mismatch between their experience and their objectives."
Harrison suggested you talk about your sincere interest in the industry and your commitment to learning more about a particular field.
Looking Forward To Talking To You
The third section of your cover letter gives you a chance to take a more active role in the job hunting process. You should always tell employers you will get back in touch with them, and then do that when you said you would.
For example, you might say "Thank you for considering my resume. I will call your office next week, and I look forward to speaking to you then if you are available."
It's best to state a time frame, like one week, and to give them enough time to assimilate the information from all of the resumes they've received.
I've found it to be very effective to say I would call employers and then subsequently call them, as promised. Frequently, potential employers would say they were glad I had the initial drive to follow up on the letter I sent them. This can work for you too.
Surprisingly, a lot of job seekers don't make any effort to follow up on the letters they send out, and this is a critical step. Saying you will follow up and then doing that gives you one more way to stand out from the crowd of job hunters.
Of course, some employers either won't take your call or won't ever call you back. It's a good rule of thumb to call employers, give them a day or two to call you back and then try again once or twice.
If you place two or three calls over the space of a week and never receive a return phone call, give up on that employer and use your time to do something more productive.
As a recent college graduate, it's hard to pick up on these unspoken rules of business. It's difficult to know where to draw the line between impressing employers with your ambition and driving them crazy with your unwanted persistence.
However, if employers will take your call, you can achieve a lot with one phone call, so be sure to mention in your cover letter that you'll be calling.
As you close your cover letter, mention that you have references who can recommend you. You can also say if you are enclosing anything with your resume.
Now that you've figured out the format of the cover letter, it's time to figure out how to write it.
Putting It All Together
Some job hunters get stuck when they sit down and start working on their cover letters. They know what they want to say, but they can't get it to sound right. Does this remind you of all those papers you wrote?
So they'll write a few sentences scribble them out or delete them, and a few hours later they're still sitting there with nothing written because it all sounds wrong.
The solution is to get your thoughts on paper and to not worry about how it sounds. Sit down and hammer out a page, whether it's for a cover letter or a thank you note, and put in everything you want to say.
Don't worry if it doesn't flow, if it's filled with grammatical errors, or if it isn't phrased well.
No matter how bad this very rough draft sounds, go ahead and forge through the whole letter. Whatever you do, don't write a few sentences and then scribble them out or delete them.
If what you've written makes sense and has some logical order, you're now ready to rewrite each part until it reads smoothly. If it doesn't have any logical order and looks like a lot of disconnected thoughts than that’s where your problem lies. You can't get it to sound right because you aren't really sure what you're trying to say. In this case, go back to square one and determine what the main thought is for each paragraph. Once you're clear on what you want to say in each paragraph, you can breeze through the actual writing of your letter. This might sound haphazard or time-consuming, but you can always polish what you have on a page. You can't do anything with a blank page or blank screen, and it's amazing how much time you can spend sitting there.
“Write Form Letters to All of My Closest Friends''
Now that you've tackled your first version of the cover letter, you need to decide how much time you can afford to spend on each subsequent letter. Should you send in the same letter in response to every ad? Or should you write a new letter each time you find a new job opportunity?
The realistic job hunter will send out hundreds of cover letters for a variety of jobs which are all built upon the same set of skills. The challenge lies in writing form letters that look as though they were written in specific response to one ad.
As we've already discussed, employers don't like it when you're clearly sending them a letter which you've sent to fifty other companies in response to ads they've posted. However, you don't have to write fifty different letters for fifty different jobs. All you need is to write a letter that fits in with the job you're seeking and accomplishes the end result of differentiating your resume and snaring you an interview. If you can develop two or three letters which you can alter slightly to answer fifty ads, you've mastered the whole cover letter game.
''Did You See That Ad for the Gamekeeper in Kenya?''
Unfortunately, some great job always comes up that doesn't fit in with your cover letters in any way.
In some cases, it's because the job is in a narrow area or because the employer wants someone with the ability to cope with very specific responsibilities.
To show that you're the right one for the job, you need to make some mention of the qualities for which they're looking, You also need a few sentences telling how great you are in exactly that area.
This is frustrating because coming up with those few sentences can take half an hour. Working them into the letter requires shifting paragraphs around. Pretty soon you have basically rewritten your entire letter and spent an hour in the process.
The 24 Hour Question
Clearly, you need to decide how much time you want to devote to an individual letter. Often, ads that look as though they require very individual responses could be answered well with one of your form letters. They could probably best be answered with an individual letter, but you do not have time to respond that way to all of the ads you see.
When you need a very personalized letter, you need to set priorities. Does the job requiring the individual letter look like a great job you'd love to have, or is it just one more thing from the newspaper on which you ought to follow up?
Decide how much you want this job. I know, you want any job. But it'll save you a lot of frustration if you keep your time spent personalizing cover letters to a minimum, because you may not hear back on a lot of the letters you send out.
So if a job looks like it was tailor-made for you, and it's everything you were looking for, go ahead and spend some extra time on the cover letter. But if it looks like it would be an average job or it's not in an area you really care about, be a little more selective with your time.
There's nothing worse than working for hours on what seems to be the perfect cover letter, never to hear from the company at all, or never to have your phone calls returned. It's also disappointing to look back through your files and see cover letters you thought were incredible that don't really seem all that jazzy on a second reading.
Cover letters are a very important part of the job search. You can use them to get an advantage over other candidates, but it's self-defeating to spend too much time on any one job response.
A One of A Kind Cover Letter For A Once In A Lifetime Opportunity
However, some jobs you see advertised will look so great you've just got to send in the perfect cover letter. In that case, follow these pointers.
One way to revise your letter quickly is to keep in mind the basic points you want to get across. It's easy to get bogged down in all of the specifics of the job and then to get off on a tangent.
Maybe that summer you spent as a camp counselor really did change your life in some way, but the more you discuss the things you learned in any one experience, the more work you have to do to relate this back to the job you're seeking. In other words, the further you get from your basic form letter, the longer it'll take you to write the response.
To keep yourself focused, keep a very close watch on the changes you make and on the time you allot yourself to make these changes. For example, tell yourself you can spend fifteen minutes making your form letter match up to the job for which you're applying, and be very strict about the changes you make. Retain the basic body of your form letter and simply refer to the specific job two or three times throughout the letter.
If the advertisement calls for someone who has had management experience, add in only one sentence at the end of your paragraph about how you supervised others during a summer job.
For example, instead of trying to develop a cohesive paragraph about management skills and your experience, write one or two sentences to add on to the basic paragraph in which you mention your other skills.
“What a Great Looking Cover Letter''
When you walked across that stage and got your diploma, you probably didn't expect to spend your time analyzing such things as paper stock and type fonts. However, little details in your cover letter can make a difference, and the physical appearance of your cover letter is important.
If you're lucky enough to be using a computer, it's important to send out cover letters that are printed in "letter quality" or "near-letter quality" type.
These terms refer to the way your computer prints on the page. Letter-quality simply means the letters are completely inked in, and the type looks like that of any regular book or magazine you would read. Letter-quality printing is preferable, as it's easier to read and it looks better on the page. Near-letter quality type encompasses a wide range of printing styles. Some near-letter quality printers are so close to letter-quality that they look completely inked in and are easy to read. The problem comes when you use a near-letter quality printer that makes each letter look like it is a fuzzy mixture of little dots (which is actually how the words are typed).
Near-letter quality type looks like something you'd print out at the computer room at school, and it s often difficult to read. If you don't have access to a letter-quality printer, you also might consider photocopying your letters onto a higher quality paper, such as a white bond. Your letters will look more attractive and more professional, but, of course, this is more expensive than using regular paper. You need to see what will fit into your budget, but in general, the more attractive the appearance of your cover letter and your resume, the more likely they are to make a favorable impression on an employer.
It might take a lot of cover letters to get a few interested responses from employers, but don't let that bother you. Once you master the basics, sending out cover letters can be a painless procedure. And as soon as you write your basic cover letter, you're ready to get into the exciting part: contacting and meeting with potential employers! We'll discuss this in the next chapter.
Want To Be Discovered?
Follow These Tips!
- Take an hour or two to make all of the decisions regarding your cover letter. What are the main work experiences to which you will refer? What are some of your more desirable personal qualities?
You can think of abstract things here, like saying you're a good leader, an assertive speaker, articulate, well-organized, work well under pressure, etc. How did your academic work contribute to your growth? What are your special accomplishments? Decide how these things can be threaded together to make a cohesive cover letter.
- Write a basic cover letter. Use the following examples to help yourself get started, and set a deadline by which you'll complete the letter. A good time frame might be three days. As we mentioned in the first chapter, you can alternate writing your cover letter with working on your resume. Try to finish both within two weeks. You might decide you will have the rough draft of your cover letter finished within three days of starting it. You can spend the remaining time rewording it, improving the sentence structure and eliminating unnecessary phrases.
- Determine where you will send your cover letter and resume. To get some ideas, read the next chapter.
