Your dream job will require a bit more effort than submitting your resume and crossing your fingers. Many Employers will want expect a cover letter to accompany your resume. While many see it as optional, you shouldn’t miss what actually a golden opportunity to explain in your words why you’re perfect for the job. This is your writing in your personality illustrating your best so that you get your call!
While we don’t recommend making anything up, ever, we do encourage you to illustrate the best of you that can’t fit on your resume – the sort of thing that requires some explanation to show why you’re an ideal candidate. Along that line, here are some tips to cover that cover letter.
What can you do for them?
Sure it’s great that getting the job will fulfill your life dream and keep you off the streets, but businesses don’t run purely off altruism! Show your skills! The interview might be the time for you to answer questions others ask of you, but the cover letter is the chance for you to ask the right questions to show your best side. It’s always great to have enthusiasm and passion, but spin it for the hiring manager and answer the question “How is hiring me beneficial to their organization?”
Don’t just restate your resume!
The hiring manager has your resume. They don’t need it twice over. Try to elaborate on your resume. Talk about your unmentioned success in jobs and the skills or achievements accrued along the way! Heck, if you’re a newly minted grad, this is an opportunity to differentiate yourself from everyone else in your class and talk about what you picked up in your learning that makes you great – leadership roles in class that translate into management, creative resolutions to problems that highlight your quick-thinking! This is a chance for you to talk about the things that don’t or won’t fit on a resume.
Address the right person!
It might be obvious for me to say this, but “Dear Abby Doe” goes a lot further than “To whom it may concern.” Do a bit of research into your target company or give them a phone call. A little bit of commitment goes a long way, and that extra step shows you really care, not only about the job, but about the people you’ll hopefully be seeing real, soon!
Cater each letter to the job
Everyone knows what a stock letter looks and feels like, and heck, even if you’re a stock-writing master, even the best of us slip up when changing the small details for every position. Don’t send the wrong letter to a job you won’t get, send the right letter to the job you want. Address the company and what sets it apart from others in your mind. Show that they’re important to you, and its far more likely they’ll return the favor!
Now do it!
Don’t be intimidated by the cover letter! You’re a capable candidate and you’ve got all these tips holstered up. Do a bit of research, brag a little and you’ve got it. Don’t let the cover letter hold you back, when it can push you to the top of the pile!