CVs and Interviews

How do I get the most out of my cover letter?

Although I rarely read them many employers do. With this in mind an expertly crafted cover letter can enhance your job hunting efforts. An important point to remember is your distribution strategy as most applications are sent by email nowadays. Below are a couple of points to ensure that your cover letter gets read and delivers the punch intended.

1. Only include a short message on your email and do not put your entire cover letter. It will not be read. Use a message that is at most a couple of lines and something snappy.

2. Put your cover letter and CV in the same file. When the receiver opens the file/document, they will have both and be able to print both easily. It is possible that the receiver will open two separate documents and will probably gravitate towards the CV meaning the cover letter may not be read.

3. Focus the cover letter to respond to the requirements in the advert, this will lead them to your CV, which is the purpose. Don’t try to make your cover letter a mini-CV.

4. Differentiate and personalise the cover letter. Use the cover letter to comment on something you found out about the company in your research, especially if it is something that you have in common.

5. Put energy into your letter. Starting your letter “I am responding to your ad. . .” is boring. Starting it with “I was excited to read your advert for . . .” could work.

Hope these help

CV Writing Service Ireland

Tags: Advice, Cover Letter Tips, Letter, Tips

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 8:30 am and is filed under Cover Letter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.