What are the Basics of a Cover Letter?

A cover letter is a letter written to the organization for a job listing you’re interested in. It is an opportunity to show the hiring managers your enthusiasm and capability for the job; as well as, to leave a good impression on them before they even meet you. Here’s a quick rundown on how a cover letter should be formatted:

· Introduce yourself.

• Write about the job you’re applying for or looking for. Write about why you want to work in this organization.
• Briefly go over the skills and experience that you possess which would help you in doing the job.
• Touch on the matter of your CV/resume, encourage them to go read it.
• End by asking for an interview or meeting to talk in more detail.

However, a cover letter is so much more than its basic format. Here are some tips to help your cover letter stand out amongst the many others:

Addressed to the Hiring Manager

Address your cover letter to the hiring manager. Never go for the boring “Dear Sir/Madam” or “To Whom It May Concern”. It’s always a better look if you can humanize the contact further by addressing a single person.

Tailored for the job

It’s easy to get into the mindset where you want to only use a single cover letter for every job, while just changing the essential information. This is very noticeable and it does nothing to help out your case amongst all the other boring applicants. It’s important to always write a fresh cover letter for every job, making sure all the information is relevant to the job in question.

Have the right tone

Don’t be too formal or too casual. Being too formal makes you appear robotic and insincere. Similarly, if you’re too casual, you seem disrespectful and not serious enough for the workplace. Have an appropriate tone, indicating that you are friendly, approachable and fun to work with.

Be Confident

Confidence is always a quality that’s in high demand. Show yourself to be that confident person that the job would benefit from. Don’t apologize for anything – a lack of experience or a work gap. Highlight your strengths, not your weaknesses. However, do make sure you don’t come off as arrogant. It helps to add statistical proof as to your capabilities. A great way to show yourself as someone confident and capable is to add quantity to your experience and skills. Instead of saying you “reduced costs”, you’d say “reduced costs by 25%”.

Expand the CV: Don’t add on needless information and do not go further than one page. However, one very common mistake is that applicants just repeat what’s already on their CV. What you should instead be doing is, expanding on your CV. Highlight key points in your CV and talk about them.

Share your stories: A small story highlighting your skills, experience or capability never goes amiss. The idea is to always grab on to the reader’s interest. The story can also be in the form of testimonials from your co-workers and managers.

Ultimately, your goal should be to communicate to the hiring managers that you are the perfect fit for the job, while keeping the cover letter interesting. Once you can consistently accomplish that, you’ll see yourself having a lot more success in hunting for jobs.