Your cover letter is your chance to introduce yourself to a prospective employer. Make sure that it convinces the employer to give you an opportunity to interview for the role. Find out how to make your cover letter stand out from the crowd.
The key to writing an amazing cover letter is to tailor it to the job for which you are applying. If the job posting asks for someone with strong communication and teamwork skills, your cover letter should mention your experiences of working with others to bring a project to completion successfully. Mention your familiarity with any particular software that is required for the role.
While a resume needs to be as tight as possible to fit your entire career history into a limited amount of space, a cover letter allows some room for additional elaboration. Include specific examples that show how you have demonstrated your skills, but keep these anecdotes brief and relevant to the role for which you are applying. Hiring managers do not have unlimited time to review your job application, so keep the length of your cover letter at less than two pages.
Your cover letter should paint a picture of you as an individual. While it is important to be professional, avoid turning your cover letter into a meaningless list of the latest buzzwords. This is another reason why including anecdotes from your career can be useful; they bring you to life as a human being, rather than a list of adjectives. Remember, it is always better to show a prospective employer how you have demonstrated strong self-motivation than to state that this is one of your qualities.
Make sure that your cover letter is free from basic spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. These errors signal to a hiring manager that you have poor attention to detail and do not take the time to double-check your work. Ask someone else to read your cover letter after you have written it to help you identify and correct any errors. Although you might think that reading it yourself is good enough, it is all too easy to miss errors that you have made yourself.
In addition to spelling and grammatical errors, be very careful to avoid making any factual errors. For example, it is absolutely necessary that you spell the hiring manager's name correctly, along with the name of the company. Also, make sure that any details you give about your career history are accurate, as you might be asked about them at the interview.
Write an amazing cover letter to support your job application. If you follow up your cover letter with a strong performance at interview, you could soon be walking into your dream job.
Photo courtesy of cooldesign at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Become a member to take advantage of more features, like commenting and voting.
Register or sign in today!