How to Write a Cover Letter

A resume simply isn’t the complete package without a cover letter.  Don’t brush it off as unimportant. The cover letter is often what motivates a busy Human Resources manager to take a serious look at your resume. Think of the cover letter as a combined introduction and sales letter that makes the reader what to know more about you.

Let’s start with an understanding of what a cover letter is NOT designed to do. Never use the cover letter as a condensed version of your resume. You can refer to accomplishments as career highlights or to prior training, but don’t make it an exact repeat.

The resume is the place to give more information on those items.  Don’t get too personal in the cover letter.  The reader doesn’t want to hear your life story, your lifelong dream to travel abroad or why you had to go to work because you could not afford college. Use conversational language that is neither too formal nor too trendy.

You don’t really walk into an interview saying something like, “The depth and comprehensiveness of my prior training programs gives me the unique position of analyzing the client needs and responding with a high degree of professionalism.”

Chances are, you don’t speak that way, so don’t write that way either - it sounds phony and pompous. Say what you mean in a personable way such as, “With my training and experience, I know how to work well with clients and am willing to learn your system of account evaluation.”

Put that statement in a cover letter and your claim is believable. An effective cover letter needs to include 7 essential elements:

1. Address the HR Manager or Interviewer by name and title. Make certain that the name is spelled correctly.  The “Dear Sir or Madam” or “To Whom It May Concern” is a loser.
   
   
2. Identify the job you are applying for and use that company’s title. This might mean you have to have more than one cover letter if the job is called Sales Associate in one company and Client Service Coordinate in another.
   
   
3. General description of your status; “ I am currently a Customer Service Agent in a related field and desire to transfer into this industry” or “As a recent college graduate with degree in Business Management and minor in HealthCare, I am looking of entry level  position where both of my skills can be utilized.”
   
   
4. Give a broad overview that’s more like a headline news than a feature story. While this may also appear on the resume, you are simply creating curiosity in the mind of the interviewer to get a face-to-face appointment. Use key phrases such as, “Earned Highest Sales Award 10 months in last year,” “Recognized as Outstanding Student Researcher” or “Progressed to Highest Classification available for my field.”
   
   
5. Provide at least three brief reasons why you would be a valuable employee to this company with phrases such as; “Proven track record in sales,” “Expertise in collections of the most challenging aged accounts,” or, “Enthusiastically approaches organizing and reviving inter-office records management systems.”
   
   
6. Ask for the interview. As with sales, it’s possible to do a great presentation that really interests the potential buyer but then fail to ask for the order. The same thing happens with many cover letters.  When wrapping up the letter, avoid the usual, “I look forward to hearing from you soon.” Instead say, “I would appreciate an interview appointment to personally present my qualifications for this position.”
   
   
7. Proofread, and then proofread again. Whether the position requires writing reports or not, your cover letter must be well written. If you are not good at this, hire someone who is. This is your first impression and it absolutely must be perfect. That requires more than spell check. The grammar and sentence structure must be accurate. Be careful that subject and verb agreement is correct and that pronouns agree. Although poor grammar in spoken language is heard from board room to burger joints, your cover letter needs to rise about that and demonstrate proper use of language.

Print your cover letter on high quality, plain white or cream toned paper. If you have personal stationary that looks professional and has your address imprint, you may use it. But even imprinted stationary that has cats, dogs, flower, college logo or any other stylistic design is not the right choice for a cover letter.

Let your words show your personality - you don’t need cute designs. And don’t use brightly colored paper with the idea that it will get noticed among a pile of letters. It will get noticed as it hits the trash.

For some jobs, showing work samples is valuable. If you have a dedicated website that presents a tasteful display of your writing samples, photos, home designs, sales presentations or other related materials, give the URL of your website in the cover letter.

Be careful about this one. Don’t use a MySpace or Facebook site unless it is totally devoted to a professional presentation of materials that would impress an interviewer. It’s never wise to add a Resume section to your current social networking site if it also has crazy college photos, off color jokes from friends or anything potentially embarrassing.

You can easily create a separate social networking site that is limited to providing materials for your job search and is not populated by friends who might place anything there that you don’t know about in advance.

Finally, present your cover letter and resume to a family friend or neighbor who is currently in business or recently retired. Ask this person to look over your cover letter and give an honest evaluation of how you are presenting yourself.