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With your CV you show prospective employers that you are the right person for the job, but your cover letter lets you show that in style.
With the cover letter you can place a particular emphasis on specific qualities that you feel deserve to be in the spotlight, especially if these things will make any bit of a difference in getting your foot in the door to an interview.
The cover letter should not range past a page, so ideally you should be keeping it at around four average sized paragraphs. The font you use for your CV should carry over to your cover letter for consistency, however if it becomes necessary for you to use a different font, then don’t go too far from each font size. A good rule would be to keep the size within ten and twelve points. The format of the entire cover letter should be in line with standard formatting for business-type letters.
- Your return address and your date should be aligned to the right.
- To the left should go the address of the person who is to get your cover letter, along with your greeting. Your ideal situation would be to get to know the name of the person you will be interviewing with, so that you can personalize the letter to that person. If you can’t discover the person’s name, then use their title as a point of addressing them, so that you don’t use a simple generic term like Sir or Madam. This will give you the edge over others.
- If you are using a subject line in your cover letter, like including a job number or other similar reference, then place it right below your greeting, and make sure it is both centered and in bold.
- Don’t use anything but single spacing for the body of your cover letter.
- End the letter with a closer such as “Kind Regards” or a similar ending. If you are sending the letter via the mail, then you want to have enough space after the closer to sign your actual signature, followed up with your name typed out.
The Structure of Your Cover Letter
It is important that your cover letter is written toward the job you are striving to be hired for. To make this happen, research becomes important for you to be able to customize your letter. In your cover letter, you will use this research to let your prospective employer learn how much you know about them. Even though your cover letter has to be formal and business-like, you don’t want to be throwing a bunch of big words that aren’t a normal part of your vocabulary into the letter. Make sure you letter is clear and flows well.
Let’s discuss the major points of a cover letter, followed by great tips for using each point to your advantage.
The Introduction
You’ll let the person reading your letter know who you are and why you are writing specifically to them, such as if you are responding to advertising or are simply inquiring about any job vacancies that you would be qualified to fill. If it is an advertisement, then you should let them know where you saw the job ad, and when. Any number referring to the job should be included in your letter, as the company could have several different ads in circulation for different positions.
Talk about your experience
Here you will quickly go over both your current jobs and those you’ve held, explaining how your experience at each has garnered the qualities that you feel will carry over to the new position, even going so far as talking about any special achievements you’ve made on your jobs in this section. However, if you are going to do this, don’t just copy over the details straight from your CV.
Give them a reason to hire you
This is the part of the cover letter where you get down to brass tacks and let your prospective employer know what areas in your experience give you the right to name yourself the perfect choice for the job, and details on why you want to work for their company. Explain why it would be a great idea to hire you, and what would make you such a great addition to their company. Zero in on particular skills or traits that were talked about in the advertisement and tell them where in your life you’ve developed these skills. After laying the foundation for your qualifications your next step is to give them the details of your next steps.
Give them a plan of action
Most cover letters that succeed will use their final paragraph to let the prospective employer know that you will wait to hear from them, and that you look forward to doing so. This is where most people fail: they leave it up to the company to make the next move. Rather, a better idea would be to give the company a suggested day and/or time with which you cna call them if you haven’t heard from them up to that point. Just make sure that you stick to that plan and actually call them when you tell them you are going to do so.
In conclusion
If your cover letter will be going out by email, then remember to keep the font in a common style, with tradtional punctuation and formatting, because depending on the computer system in use, it could look far different once it reaches its destination.
If you include the cover letter within the email itself as opposed to sending it as an attachment, then you will want to keep the letter as formal as if you had written it by hand, including checking grammar and spelling before you send it off. Keep in mind, too, that you will need to send your CV along with the cover letter email as an attachment.
