Editor’s note: This article was first published in March 2012, when job applications were often sent on paper; the advice to sign the letter by hand and keep it to one sheet assumes a printed letter, whereas most applications are now sent by email or online forms.
Hello, good morning, pleased to meet you…
This is the first personal contact between one person and the other party. It is also the first image of a person. The other party receives their first sense of the person in front of them (the candidate, in a selection process), who offers an image and first personal impressions that can be vital to the selection process. We all know that a bad first impression can put a company off and lead it to reject the candidate immediately.
Updated, useful articles on cover letters:
- The perfect cover letter, according to the experts
- Examples of cover letters that grabbed attention right away
The cover letter is a company’s first sense of a candidate and their CV. It is that initial greeting, the first image and impression, so what the letter says is vital and crucial to your job search.
Cover letter layout
Layout matters, but the most important thing about the letter is its content. We can offer a few small tips for writing it, and I’ll say it again: keep the content more in mind than the design.
It is a business letter, headed with the sender’s full personal details (first name, surname and full address) and the name and address of the company it is addressed to.
The text shouldn’t be crammed together. It needs white space so it doesn’t “overwhelm” the eye, it should be an original and it should be signed by hand. Use a suitable font size and leave margins on both sides of the text. You can also highlight the most interesting sections or sentences of the letter in bold or in a different typeface. As an example, we’ll use this format in the next section.
The content of the cover letter
The text should be clear, concise, brief and direct. In a few lines and with short, simple sentences, the reader should come away with a perfect picture of the person signing the document.
The points a cover letter should include are:
It is essential that it contains general but personalised references to the company you are writing to. It must never be a stock text you send for every job offer; the letter has to be different and original for each company. We need to make a brief reference to the company we are approaching. It’s the same as a personal visit: we can’t turn up in casual clothes to an interview at a bank or other financial institution.
It is also a must to set out the candidate’s main achievements, goals reached and key milestones: studies or previous work experience, especially if they have something to do with the company you are sending the cover letter to.
Interest in the job is something that motivates a company and that it likes to hear, so it is necessary to include the reasons why we are sending our letter and CV to that company and for that specific position. This is what makes the letter individual and personal. For example: “Given my experience in the insurance world, I would like to work with a company like yours, whose range of products meets every customer need.”
Leave out minor or uninteresting details, or anything that makes the letter too long. It shouldn’t run to more than one page and, go on, dare to ask for a personal interview.
Featured image: Gabriel Metsu, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
