Today I’m beginning the first part of a 3 part series. I’ll be discussing the most important documents and skills needed in beginning the search for a job.
The Cover Letter
It’s the essential thing to send with your resume. Cover Letters with resumes attached. Always.
Man I hate that thing. It’s so simple compared to a resume, but it’s wide open. What exactly do you write? If you’re applying to a bunch of companies, how do you keep that from taking up all of your time?
The point of a cover letter is to sell your reader to your resume. That’s it. Once they’ve decided that your letter is interesting enough, they’ll continue on to your resume. The idea is to sum up your resume to the reader, and flush out some sticky points and emphasize your personality.
Sounds easy but is time consuming. You always want to open your Cover Letter just like the inside of a standard business letter. Your name and contact info, The name of the recipient and their info followed by your letter.
- The body consists of a 3-4 paragraphs. I don’t want to write a book, and if it’s done well enough both the reader and I will have more than enough to talk about in the future, face to face. Brevity is key. You want to sell them your resume, which will sell you.
- Be sure to include the name of the person who’s reading it. This person could possibly hire you, so it’s better to take the time to find out their name than just using the generic “to whom it may concern”.
- Be sure to include something about the position and the company. Explain how you’re qualified for this particular job and what concrete skills you can bring to it. You want them to be interested enough to continue on.
- Use a casual link if you can. It’s better that you know them through your neighbor Bob, than through the classified section of your neighbor Bob’s newspaper.
- When you close, don’t just end it. Be proactive. Human Resources loves this. Add a statement that says “I’ll call you Tuesday the 20th at 3:15pm” or something specific. This shows initiative, and it puts a voice to your paper. It’s harder to turn someone away once they’ve heard your voice.
For e-mail, a cover letter generally consists of the body of the e-mail with the resume attached. Write the exact same thing as in a normal professional cover letter, and just put it into your e-mail.
For mass resume drops you may want to consider a generic cover letter. This usually involves a certain line you’d edit. Instead of going in depth about the company or position, you can really go in-depth as to why you are a great worker. Nothing eats up space like your knowledge of yourself. Keep in mind that this isn’t very effective. In my experience only 1 out of every 10 cold drops gets a response.
Tomorrow I’ll be discussing the Resume.
