Cover letters serve as an introduction to your resume. While a great cover letter can help you make a good first impression on an employer, a bad cover letter could result in an employer discarding your resume without reading further. Follow the tips below while writing your cover letters and you will be sure to impress every hiring manager you send them to.
Be creative:
- Recruiters and hiring managers spend all day going over cover letters, so it’s incredibly important that yours stands out. Most job seekers follow the same basic cover letter format, so anything you do differently will make yours unique.
- Try to grab your reader’s attention in the first few sentences of your cover letter. Avoid using the basic introduction stating how perfect you are for a particular position. If you can’t grab the reader’s attention immediately, they probably will not continue reading the cover letter.
Be brief:
- Job seekers commonly mistake cover letters as opportunities to present their entire professional background. While you want to mention the highlights of your career and skills, you do not need to mention every position you have had in the past ten years.
- Instead, you can use your cover letter as an opportunity to mention any skills or past responsibilities you have had that qualify you for the position you are applying for. If a hiring manager sees specific skills they are looking for mentioned in your cover letter, they will be more inclined to view your resume.
Be personal:
- While you want to keep your cover letter professional, it is also important to give it a personal tone. Speak conversationally without being too informal, and avoid being overly formal.
- Mention something about yourself that makes you stand out as a stellar candidate. Cover letters provide an opportunity to mention any past experience or skill you have that may not fit on a resume, but helps qualify you for a particular position.
Cover letters not only give employers insight into your background, they also serve as a representation of your writing and communication skills. After completing your cover letter, be sure to edit it for any grammatical or spelling mistakes. Also, we suggest you have someone else read through it to check for readability and any mistakes you may have missed. Simply follow this advice and your cover letter will be sure to impress any hiring manager!
