Cover UP
So - you’ve fine-tuned your resume, have created a list of your dream jobs, are on the continued lookout for golden opportunities, and are directing your energy in all the right ways. You are ready.
Now all you need is the perfect cover letter to help get you in the door to take your career to the next level.
Why Cover Letters Matter
Cover letters are important because they compliment your resume by giving you the opportunity to talk a little more about your professional experience, build context about why the position you’re applying for would be a good fit, and helps show potential employers - especially in these times of remote work - a bit of your personality.
What to Include
The best place to start in a cover letter is a friendly greeting to the hiring manager (if you know their name), or a slightly more formal general greeting (I’m a fan of “To Whom It May Concern”), if you don’t. From there, the following elements are always a great way to expand on your resume in a non-repetitive way:
Restate the name of the position you’re interested in. This will communicate to the hiring manager that you have proactively tailored this cover letter to this position, specifically, and that you’re not using a form letter of some sort. (Of course, there are ways to build templates to do this slightly more efficiently, but then you run the risk of getting the wrong position title in your cover letter).
Expand on the highlights of your resume, but don’t repeat yourself. If you want to talk more about a particular skill or accomplishment on your resume, make sure you’re saying something more than just what’s listed on your resume - tell a story, include more specific numbers, or give the item you’re highlighting more context in some way.
Include some of your personal interests. Showing that you have interests outside the job will help them understand that you are a well-rounded candidate that looks for inspiration, ideas, and education outside of the office, which will ultimately help everyone. This is a great place to include any community service, volunteering, or other leadership experiences with a chance to include some (appropriately filtered) humor, if you wish.
Keep it short. Respect your audience by striking the balance between sharing your background, but keeping it concise. There are exceptions, of course, but no more than one page is generally a polite length.
What to Avoid
As with anything, there are some approaches to cover letter writing that are best to avoid. Some of these pitfalls include:
Citing negative background information without ending positive. If you’re leaving your job for negative reasons or have something negative in your past that it will be necessary to disclose, definitely do so, but keep that section short, informational, and end with something positive, such as, “I’ve learned a lot from that situation and am looking forward to growing from that experience.” Everyone has obstacles, but this will show that you’re not afraid to take wisdom from them.
Delving into politics or religion. Unless you’re applying to an organization that deals directly with either where expressions on those topics would be relevant to the work being done, neutrality is recommend.
Not proofreading. This is your first impression to the organization, so proofread until it hurts! One great way to ensure that you have no embarrassing typos is to have friends, family, and anyone else that is willing to read your cover letter over with fresh eyes.
Check Out An Example
Below is a sample of a cover letter I wrote to pull these themes together:
Hi, Kevin!
I'm super interested in your UK Customer Support Engineer position.
To give you a little background, I have been working in IT and communications for more than a decade, and during that time, I have taught myself graphic design, video production, blogging, analytic analysis and several types of coding to stay current with the changing demands of internet trends and best practices. I love learning new things, so the "you'll never be bored" part of your job description resonated a lot for me.
I have been in IT customer support in one vein or another most of my life, and am well-versed in multitasking, dealing with different time zones, being unflappable despite any adverse situation, but also empathetic to frustrated clients who may be new or having trouble with software. We use desk.com for our support tickets, but I am versed in Zendesk, Airtable, Google Apps, MS Office, and Docusign as well, and I am my company's go-to for client questions on Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. I have also worked at a remote tech support position (which I'm currently still at) for the past year and a half making record numbers on my team with both email support tickets and instant chat cases.
I love challenges in and out of the office - after an amazing series of events and having no sailing experience, I'm now a rookie on the crew of a boat that races competitively and learning more about sailing with each race (we do pretty well!). I'm also an amateur photography (yes, I call my camera Vera) and plan to write nonstop for National Novel Writing Month in November (plot TBD).
Attached, please find my resume for your review. Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions via email or my cell at 202.555.1234 - I look forward to speaking with you!
Best,
Carmen
I’d love to hear your feedback, suggestions, and winning cover letter stories in the comments section below - cheers to you all!
