Cover letters

Introduction

Your covering letter is the first thing that an employer will read. It is your first opportunity to make an impact, to make the employer want to take a look at your application and possibly to meet you. With this in mind your covering letter needs to paint a picture in the reader’s mind of how your experience, skills, personality, and motivations match their requirements. A tough job considering it has to be done on one page of A4! Whatever you write needs to be short, succinct and to the point. So, the letter is a series of short statements with one or two examples and supported by evidence provided in your CV or application form. The statements and evidence should provide just enough information to make the employer want to read your CV or application form.

There are two main types:

• a letter in response to a job advert
• a speculative letter, i.e. you are trying to find out if there are any jobs available.

Letter in response to a job advert

Address it to a Particular Person by Name.

Send your letter to the person named in the job advert - if it doesn’t give a specific name you’ll need to find out who to send your application to. This way it is more likely to get read. Think of your own experience - when your mail arrives, letters addressed to you personally tend to be the first ones you read. Letters addressed to "sir" or "madam" or "student" may not be read at all. You’ll need to call the firm and find out the name (check spelling!) and title of the individual to who you should address the letter.

Convey enthusiasm

Employers want to read that the applicant is enthusiastic. Do this by using words such as “interested”, “excited”, “keen”, “eager”, etc. So one of the paragraphs could describe what it is that interests you about the job. By choosing two or three duties of the job and giving them as examples, you are able to convey what they mean to you, e.g. “enjoyment”, “excitement”, etc. This allows you to get across your enthusiasm for the job.

Answer the Question "Why Should I See You?".

This is the really important bit. The work world operates on value as well as need. A potential employer needs to see you as being valuable to them, so focus on what you can do for them and not what you want from them. The only way you can do this is to understand what sort of experience and skills they are looking for which can usually be found in the job advert, job description or on the website. Using this information, explain how you can meet their criteria by briefly describing how your own experiences and skills match what they want.

Communicate Something Personal.

People who get a lot of mail are wary of standard letters and have developed personal techniques to skim quickly before reading to see if, in fact, the letter has a message for them. In your opening lines, write something that is uniquely associated with the person, division, or organisation that will signal to the reader that you’ve invested the time to research the organisation. Mention something you have found out about the company which impressed you, for example, their website, client list, news of them in the media, recent mergers and personal contacts.

“Closing”.

Now you need a closing paragraph. Finish off saying something positive like, “I hope to meet you at interview”, and tell them what you’ve enclosed in an envelope or attached in an email, for example, a CV.

Click here to see a guide to structuring a cover letter.

A Speculative Letter

The second type of letter that is used in job applications is a speculative letter, used if you are trying to find out if there are any jobs available.

Address it to a Particular Person by Name.

Send your letter to the person who can make the hiring decision, by name. This way it is more likely to get read. Think of your own experience - when your mail arrives, letters addressed to you personally tend to be the first ones you read. Letters addressed to "sir" or "madam" or "student" may not be read at all. You’ll need to call the firm and find out the name (check spelling!) and title of the individual to who you should address the letter. Don't worry if it takes three or four calls. You don't need to say that you are looking for a job – you could say that you have some information to send and want to make sure it gets into the hands of the right person.

Tell them what you are doing

The first thing you need to do is to actually tell the reader why you are writing. So you need to mention your current situation, what sort of job you are looking for, how long for and when you want it to start. The temptation is to look as flexible as possible by saying, "I’ll do anything…".

However, this comes across as desperate and means the reader has to spend time thinking about where you might fit in with their organisation. If it’s a large organisation, then the person may not know. So try and be specific about the type of job/work you want to do. This way, if the reader can’t help you they are more able to pass it onto someone who can.

Communicate Something Personal.

People who get a lot of mail are wary of standard letters and have developed personal techniques to skim quickly before reading to see if, in fact, the letter has a message for them. In your opening lines, write something that is uniquely associated with the person, division, or organisation and that will signal to the reader that you invested the time to communicate personally. Mention something you have found out about the company which impressed you, such as their website, client list, news of them in the media, recent mergers and personal contacts.

Answer the Question "Why Should I See You?".

The work world operates on value, as well as need. A potential employer needs to see you as being valuable to them, so focus on what you can do for them and not what you want from them. In the body of your cover letter communicate some special way in which your skills will be valuable to the potential employer. Create interest in yourself. This will take some basic research in your target field to find out what the employer wants.

Ask for the Interview.

Salespeople call this the "close" - the time when you ask for the business. In this case the "business" is a personal meeting (a more subtle word than interview). Ask for it. You can even suggest a date and time. Asking for a personal meeting and not a job will at least provide you with the opportunity to discuss your application with someone in the field you want to get into.

There is more information on writing covering letters on the Prospects web site.