"If Your Resume is the Cake, Your Cover Letter is the Icing."
Your resume is the frosting on the cake. It's your job to put it all out there, present yourself in a strong, professional way that really tells employers how hard you're willing to work for them and how excited you are for the opportunity. Your cover letter is your actual "icing" — it's where you should have all of your relevant skills, experience, and personal details laid out in one tidy package so that they'll trust you enough to continue reading.
Looking at it that way, it makes sense why most cover letters are pretty boring — they're just really hard to write. But then again, what's the point of having a resume if it doesn't catch a hiring manager's attention? How we used to think about cover letters (that is, copy and pasting a different "Dear Hiring Manager" letter for every job application we tried to send) is no longer an option.
The tips below will help you create the perfect cover letter for any position — that is both professional and engaging — so that potential employers take a minute to actually look at your resume. It's time you put your cake and icing together so that both can be appreciated fully.
1.Establish a connection
Nowadays, the first sentence of your cover letter is like the first line of a personal ad — it's what immediately hooks the reader into knowing more about you. It should be compelling, specific, and most importantly, it should tell the employer why you're writing to them. And this is why copying and pasting a generic cover letter for each job application you send out isn't going to cut it anymore — instead, think of something fun or quirky that will grab their attention and will get you in the door for an interview. Here are some options:
a. If you found the job posting on a website or through an advertisement, talk about how it specifically jumped out at you, and why your skills and experience are in line with what they're looking for.
b. If you have a referral from someone who works at the company (or used to), be sure to include that person's name and title in the first sentence as well, so that they'll recognize your name when they see it.
c. If you have a personal connection to the company, I talked about this in my article on pitching yourself to employers, but be sure to include that reasoning in your letter.
d. If it's a travel industry job and you're going on a trip to the location, mention how you're going to be spending the time at the office (or in this case, at the job you'll be applying for).
e. If there is something important or unusual about your background (like being the first person of color or female veteran) tell them.
Remember, resume materials are intended to get you in the door for an interview, so don't waste your time or theirs by sending generic letters for each application. Instead, customize your cover letter and make a connection to the company that you want to work for — just be sure not to go overboard with it (we'll talk more about that in tip number four).
2. Resume bullets first
Once you've made a connection with them (as discussed above), it's time to start listing out your most relevant skills and experience. And the most important thing to remember is that you should be using bullets.
This is a big, big no-no in cover letter writing.
The reason why most cover letters are so boring is that they're written like this: Dear Hiring Manager, My name is Yolande Jones, and I am a recent graduate of Algonquin College where I obtained my Bachelor of Science in Travel Industry Management. I am very excited about the opportunity to apply for the Product Developer position with your company, and fully believe that my unique skills and abilities will be a valuable addition to your team. [Convolution of sentences ensues. The reader is no longer engaged.] That's boring.
You can tell that the person who wrote that letter had a lot of good skills and abilities, right? I mean, they could have just made a list of all the things they did before they applied for the job (which would have been a reasonable thing to do, considering how long they had been out of school), but instead they spent 16 whole sentences telling you about how great their skills are and how great they will be at the job.
Instead, you should stop typing and start reading: My name is Yolande Jones, and I am a recent graduate of Algonquin College where I obtained my Bachelor of Science in Travel Industry Management. I am very excited about the opportunity to apply for the Product Developer position with your company, and fully believe that my unique skills and abilities will be a valuable addition to your team.
Everything in this first sentence is special. Your name may not be all that exciting, but it at least has some personality behind it — after all, you're practically telling them your whole life story in those first 16 words! And then, they've just started telling them something specific about themselves in the next three sentences (which is far from boring). In the remaining sentences, they can really sell themselves even more by using numbers and statistics to back up their claims.
Most importantly, this type of letter will definitely get them to read on — and I mean it will really hook them. If you want to know how I know that, click here . Trying to write an entire cover letter without any numbers or statistics is boring as hell, but doing it any other way is just downright impossible. And if you include bullet points in your cover letter, it won't be a long-winded string of sentences (like the one above) — it will be the most exciting thing they've ever read!
3.
Conclusion
It's important to remember that your cover letter (like your resume) should be concise. Don't write a novel if you don't have to — and if you do, write it as a separate document (or as a PDF attachment). In fact, most cover letters should only be one page long, including the resume bullets.