Posted by Robert Half on 07 July 2013 Megan Broussard is the creator of the career-lifestyle site ProfessionGal. based in NYC. It’s your treat for the workweek if you’re a young female professional or entrepreneur with a craving to get ahead and have a sweet spot for office style. Connect with her on Twitter. Instagram. Facebook. LinkedIn. Pinterest. Quora. and Google+ . So, to avoid your resume landing in the circular file and to achieve your goal of getting an interview, follow these five guidelines—and the easiest-to-remember acronym ever: “C-O-V-E-R.” Instead, show off your skills with descriptive statements like “I’m an expert communicator with experience bringing together diverse departments to develop a cohesive program.” It’s longer—but it’s also stronger. Exemplify your strengths . Avoid . at all costs . describing yourself as a “team player” or a “people-person.” It’s like a graphic designer using the font Comic Sans—it’s overused, oversimplified, and it underplays your unique attributes. More from this Author Not sure which facets of your experience to include? Start with the points listed specifically in the job description. By proving you meet an employer’s top requirements, you’ll keep her attention to read on.
Take the extra time, make the extra effort and prove to the hiring manager that you deserve an interview.and from beginning to end, prepare to keep paying it forward for the job that you want. One common mistake people make when applying to a job is that they don't appreciate the real value of the posting. Within a job posting are all of the hints and tips you could ever need to land yourself an interview. At this point in your cover letter you've peaked a hiring manager's interest. You've proven that you're educated and interested.now its time to push them over the edge. Include in your cover letter (just a sentence or two) as to how you would dive-into work, should the job become yours. Add An Idea or Two The second line and final thing you need to tend to is the email's subject line. If a job ad posts as Corporate Manager, how many email subject lines do you think are going to include that phrase -making you one of a million-? Instead, make an effort to stand out and be relevant, something like Customer Service-Oriented Manager catches the eye. They will list what they need; i.e. Someone who possesses excellent customer service skills. And, within your cover letter you will craft writing that responds directly to their needs; i.e. Within my 5 years of management experience, exceptional and organic customer service remains my top priority. Design a cover letter that proves you are exactly the hire they've been looking for; the paved path on how to get there is yours for the taking. OK, that looks just fine; however what if it looked like this: I am excited to be applying for your open management position and the chance to potentially join X Company's team. 13. There are some things you shouldn’t include in your cover letter. It’s not necessary to include personal information. Never include salary requirements unless the employer specifically requests that you do. Don’t mention how you left your last job, especially if you were fired. Keep your letter focused on the job for which you’re applying and keep it factual. Here are 15 things not to include in a cover letter . What’s the best way to get your cover letter noticed when the employer has a ton of them to look through? 5. Keep it short and simple. Cover letters don’t need to be long. 4. Choose a basic font. Pick a font that’s easy to read. Times New Roman, Arial, and Calibri work well. Review these tips for selecting a font size and style for your cover letter. 11. Use a T-Shape for you cover letter. A T-shaped cover letter lists your experience and the employer’s requirements, typically in a table after an introductory paragraph and above the closing. Take a look at these tips and see which ones will work best for you. Even a few small changes can make a big difference. 16. Include an email signature when emailing cover letters. When you email a cover letter, be sure to include a signature with your name, phone number, email address, and LinkedIn profile URL if you have one. That will make it easy for the recruiter to get in touch with you. You want to convey enthusiasm, but not at the expense of professionalism. Tl;dr considerations aside, the revised cover letter is much too informal, and strikes me as being a little too cavalier. As a hiring manager, I’d be questioning whether this person is serious about the position at all — with phrases like “gatekeeper, technology whiz, bookkeeper and marketing guru”, you’re not exactly positioning yourself as an administrative professional. That’s certainly not how one would correspond with internal or external clients, so why would it be appropriate for application materials? The penultimate paragraph strikes me as insincere, which is almost worse than conveying no enthusiasm at all. So you need to translate it for them. What skills did it take to accomplish X and Y? What does having completed X and Y say about you, in terms that are transferable and meaningful? Good time management skills? Strong grasp of emerging technology and the ability to apply it in a practical way? I think that you can add formality to the second letter, but still keep the spirit of the letter. My cover letter to my current position read more like the second than the first (but more formal, no rhetorical questions). Thank you! I was truly lost as to what to write on it and there are limited intern spots available so I was panicking a bit… I appreciate the advice greatly! You are right. I went back to recheck. Still no essays scholarships, this type of letter would not work for an attorney position. The expectation is that are supposed to be reserved. Starting the first two most important paragraphs with “It” and “As” garners a D- from me. There are many more words in the “after” version, which means fewer people will have the patience to read them. If this qualifies as thoughtful advice, the job seekers of the future are in trouble. I agree that it’s not a good fit for an attorney position (I would certainly use a more formal cover letter myself), but it’s also not trying to be a good fit for an attorney position – it’s very specifically written for one position literature review for research example, which is what makes it so good. Thanks, everyone! And thanks, Alison, for wanting to share it. I’m not a lawyer but work with lawyers regularly and really liked this cover letter. More conservative field may expect more formal language in a cover letter but I think this one is really well written and excellent for the LW’s position applied for. Aw gods, are they proposing to rebuild Winterfell? That sounds like a very worthwhile project! My heart aches when I think about what has been lost. Fantastic letter! Thanks for sharing, Letter Owner and AAM. Your personality really shines through in the “after” version, and the first version looks like every lame cover letter I’ve ever written in my life! Between real-life examples of cover letters like this and the fascinating salary thread last week do kids want more homework, this blog truly is an awesome resource. I think you’re right about needing to be reserved, but there’s a difference between “reserved” and “generic”. Write your letters in a way that differentiates you. What do you really offer your future employer? Why do you want this job specifically? That’s what I really want to know– when I see someone who can write persuasively, that’s the mark of someone who can help my group. Very nice! I need to write a cover letter tonight, and this example is giving me Ideas. (I promise not to randomly capitalize for emphasis in my cover letter, pinkie swear!) My pre-Ask-a-Manager cover letters read just like the Before example. I’m still working towards the After. I wish I could sprinkle mine with Westerosi examples, though. That would really spice things up! (This is good to do even if you’re moving within a job type, because you’ll interview better if you really understand your strengths and how they translate into the work you’re able to do.) The idea is to make sure that the message you want to convey is the message that’s received, and that might involve a re-framing of how you present your value. In addition to being flexible and responsive, I’m also a fanatic for details – particularly when it comes to presentation. One of my recent projects involved coordinating a 200-page grant proposal: I proofed and edited the narratives provided by the division head, formatted spreadsheets, and generally made sure every line was letter-perfect and that the entire finished product conformed to the specific guidelines of the RFP. (The result? A five-year einstein essay, $1.5 million grant award.) I believe in applying this same level of attention to detail to tasks as visible as prepping the materials for a top-level meeting and as mundane as making sure the copier never runs out of paper. You know what it means to have created legal policies as in-house counsel. But maybe the hiring manager doesn’t. Maybe ‘drafted corporate legal policy’ means as much to the hiring manager as ‘Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra’. I am not on the job market yet but have to ask: is it really feasible to write cover letters this tightly customized to positions? If you are applying to several dozen jobs a week it seems a bit unwieldy. When I applied to THANK YOU for sharing – very helpful indeed! A field-specific comment: I’ve done hiring for lawyers, and this would be unusually informal in that field. Not that I expect or want “Dear Sir or Madam themes and essays,” but the contractions and colloquialisms (“Nice touch!”) would stand out, and not necessarily in a good way. However, I think a candidate who used slightly more formal language with this kind of open what are good extended essay topics, conversational tone would be really appealing to a hiring manager. The point of mentioning building legal polices and procedures where none existed is to create a starting point for how I add value. It demonstrates that I must know the law, how to apply them, how to work with others, how to assess value or follow the value assessed by others, how to achieve business goals etc Alison, you’ve said in the past that a cover letter should take about 20 minutes. How on earth do you write this kind of highly customized cover letter in 20 minutes? My process usually involves reading the job posting thoroughly and pulling out key words and phrases that really communicate what they’re looking for. Then I go through their web site, LinkedIn profile, and any other information (e.g. press releases, news articles, etc.) to get a feel for not only who they are, but who they believe they are. I choose a few key attributes of mine that I want to highlight, given my understanding of what they’re looking for (based on the previous steps) and finally add in either a paragraph or several sentences here and there about why I want to work for them in particular. Next, my husband (who’s also in my field) reviews the cover letter and gives me suggestions. I also comb my network to see if I know anyone at that employer. If I do, I also ask them to take a look at my resume (which has also been customized and search optimized for the position) and cover letter both for general feedback and for input on how it fits with what the employer is generally looking for. Based on this feedback, I might do a few small edits, or I might do a total re-write (e.g. I recently applied for a position where my contacts said that all the employer wants to hear is about how much you want to work for them, not at all about your accomplishments). This draft might go through one more round of review and feedback from my husband and my contacts. Finally, after I’ve done all the substantive edits, I go through it at least three separate times for typos (and I mean really go through it — like reading it backward, reading it out loud, etc.). After all that, it’s finally done. There’s no way this is a 20 minute process. It’s not even an hour long process. I could only see getting a cover letter ready in 20 min if you used boilerplate and just were changing the addressee (and doing that would probably take me close to 20 min because I always triple check all of the details of spelling etc. of the addressee’s name and address, plus of course doing the research to figure out who the addressee should be critical thinking classes in schools, which is almost never posted). As I asked the other day, I would like to know how all these principles apply to my profession. Whether it is this type of letter or results oriented resumes. Thanx for this information sharing and I really enjoy reading it and apply it. Hopefully, this time get a chance of interview. Thanks for sharing, and good luck with the job! I love this letter. Thanks for sharing! Thank you SO MUCH! Excellent cover letter! I’d be interested to know if this one snagged her an interview as that’s the trouble I’m having. My good friend just referred me to your website, and it’s like an oasis in the American job hunting jungle chaos. Thanks for sharing the reader’s letter. It’s more personal than most cover letters, and I would be surprised to hear that she did NOT receive a call to interview. I don’t have a great letter kicking around, but for an example of formal but not stuffy tone, I would read personal essays or high-end journalism. The New Yorker publishes essays that have fantastic personal style but still follow the conventions of formal writing. I would start there. In today’s world cover letter should be preferably short and to the point and not longer than in your ‘after version’. Hiring Managers are receiving so many a day that it be interesting enough to keep reading. Great job LW and thanks for sharing with AAM to share with readers. Also I can totally relate to Beth’s struggles because they are mine as well! It’s taken me days to finish this cover letter I’m working on and reading other articles on writing amazing cover letters has put me at a loss as I am second guessing myself and am still having the hardest time conveying my personality and professionalism in a way that is short and succinct. Thoughts? This letter is FANTASTIC. D So everywhere I look I’ve been finding limited help on writing my cover letter because I’m a junior in high school with almost no prior job experience and I’m applying for an engineering internship that they haven’t even told what exactly we’ll be doing. We could be doing anything from manual labor to programming. So I’m not sure what exactly to focus my cover letter on except that I’ve taken three years of engineering classes and I really want to be an engineer… Can you help me? @Julie – I totally agree. The first letter was “yadda, yadda” and I couldn’t tell you a thing about it, but the details in the second really stand out and make the author’s personality sing. I am attempting to break into the event planning industry and recently came across a posting for a Group Sales Co-ordinator. While it is not directly events related, there are many aspects of the position that allow me to work in collaboration with the events team. The job is at a ski resort (which is open year round and has many summer events) and although I am not completely qualified I have decided to apply anyways. I was looking for a way to really stand out and as CL’s generally stump me I came across this post. As a frequent reader of AAM I had read it before but never gained much inspiration from it … until now! Does anyone not notice the Game of Thrones references?! I’d love to say my cover letters are as good as the OP’s, but they aren’t. I used to try to work from a previous one for a similar position, but I actually think it was harder, because no two positions are enough alike, nor are the companies. So I’d rework for hours, only to finally realize I was getting hung up on trying to use stuff that wasn’t even very good. Very hard to say without seeing the letter and knowing their context, unfortunately! It is with great enthusiasm that I submit my application for the position of Sales Coordinator for the Westeros Castle Project. As an administrative professional with over ten years’ experience, I know my diverse skills and qualifications will make me an asset to the Westeros project team. Thanks for sharing that link! Part of me wants to still try to write a unique cover letter, so I filled the opening/closing with more personality, but I’m having a hard time meeting their expectations without simply repeating tasks on my resume that are a close match for the listed qualifications/tasks at the organization. In any case, my question is: How do you give a cover letter more personality when you are applying to a hiring committee that may have very set expectations for the format? If people like example cover letters, you might take a peek at http://opencoverletters.com/. They’re anonymous, successful cover letters from librarians and archivists. I’ve been checking cover letters since I am about to write my first outline for a personal essay for college, and this is by far the best I’ve ever encountered (after 3 hours of reading some). Thank you very much. ) Game of Thrones? I am having total writer’s block. My self esteem has suffered, and it probably has to do with me thinking way too hard on my cover letter. The more I read about how to write awesome cover letters, I become more confused. I’m second guessing myself to the point I cannot type one word. I am applying for a police dispatcher’s position at my local university. Does anyone have any pointers that help overcome writer’s bl0ck? I’ve noticed that since I have improved my cover letters, I’m starting to get phone interviews, but I think I’m blowing them, somehow. Recruiters seem to be trained to have as flat an affect as possible and not to give any feedback. The recruiter I spoke with last Friday didn’t even say “uh-huh,” or give any verbal punctuation to the conversation at all. It was conversational weightlessness—no gravity or reference point—very unsettling. We’ll see if I get a call for an in-person interview for that one! I doubt it. I love your second letter. Writing formally feels so….not me. I hope you get an interview! I’m curious to know if fresh graduates with no working experience should put in their hobbies in their cover letters. 15 grad programs I had a boilerplate essay, and would customize a paragraph about my fit for the individual school/program, and that was still really time consuming. I don’t think i’m quite as awesome at it as this example, but I’m definitely closer to the after example than the before after reading this site so long Also a lawyer and I also agree about the formality of this letter. I think it’s difficult to be both conversational and formal at the same time. Alison, put a note in about not taking these because you had heard about hiring managers coming back! Application for position: Manager CRM Business Processes This Before and After example is the most helpful tool i have found on the web for figuring out how to get myself out of the old-fashioned, boring recast of my resume in the cover letter, to a dynamic cover letter that introduces me without being smarmy or over the top. THANK YOU SO MUCH for Sharing and posting these. So glad I’ve came across this! I’ve been struggling to find that balance of professionalism and personality to add to my cover letter, and this has really helped me. I love all the Game of Thrones references. I’m about to finish season 2. I’m imagining all the different cover letters from each character. Joffrey’s would say, “I’ll sue your company if you don’t hire me!” and then he’d send his lackey to the interview because he couldn’t be bothered to do it himself. ) For whatever it’s worth, I think learning to write this way is helpful for legal work as well as cover letters. Many lawyers don’t write well, and you will stand out if you can write clearly and readably. I fall somewhere between the two in mine, I think. While we don’t want to copy word for word, I think that finding something in the position, the company, etc to be truly passionate about is the thing to take away from this. I try to sound passionate and excited, because I really do enjoy customer service essay writing topics in english with answers, but my letters might be coming off to them like “Yeah, she’s passionate about what she does, but is she really passionate about us and what WE do?” Thanks! I was particularly proud of that line (although it still doesn’t read quite as smoothly as I’d like). If you could read the job description an argumentative paper, you’d see that it calls for, in much more general terms, that breadth of responsibilities. My goal was to show that I grasped the job description without parroting it back to them. Let’s say I’m an interviewer. You tell me that you’re awesome at building legal departments from scratch. If I say, “Okay, and how does that benefit me?” – What’s your response? Thank you for sharing this. Thanks so much to the author for letting this be posted. My cover letters tend to be pretty long (still within a page, but barely) and very formal, and as much as I try I still do it again and again. This is a great example of how to make a cover letter informal while still conveying the ‘right’ information. Great job, original cover-letter-writer. I have also switched to using this style and I’m convinced it has helped me land interviews I may not otherwise have gotten! Love this example — definitely makes me rethink what I currently have and figure out how to make it better! I’d love to see AAM post a cover letter example for an attorney or a cover letter that’s for a traditionally conservative field. I think you need to extrapolate a bit – what talents and abilities made you really good at that job that apply to a more traditional role? I can’t wait for an update! Good luck! Wow, that really is quite a difference! Thanks for sharing. Please don’t call me crazy for asking this, but can I actually mention having applied for the same position in the past? For example, “I applied for the accounting position in the past, but now that I have XYZ experience, I feel I’m much better qualified.” Or would that just draw attention to the fact that they didn’t like me the first time I applied? Having to build out legal policies as well as compliance programs where none previously involved convincing business managers that there was a problem (e.g. understanding privacy law) and selling them on the need to implement strategies, often nationally and abroad. This was a challenge that I often lost because of the resistance to legal risk management strategies, but I can point to value of what I did do. Well, one of the things that I am now trying to emphasize in my letter is that I entered my current position as the first and only in-house counsel. Management has decided to phase out the position for business reasons and will use outside counsel to take care of issues now that I have built basic legal programs for them. The CEO did state that I opened the company’s eyes to many policies that they didn’t even know they needed.
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