Cover Letter Content: Fill & Download for Free

Your cover letter is often your first interview with a company, the first chance for a hiring agent to get to know you. A good resume cover letter can help you make a good impression and get an interview. A weak cover letter might cause your resume to be placed in the reject pile.Many of our clients have asked, “What do I put in my cover letter?” And nearly all of our clients have needed assistance with organizing the content of their letters. Below, we will address both of these issues. If you come seeking our help with your resume and cover letter, great. However, the brief guide below should get you started on writing a successful cover letter.Cover Letter Content and OrganizationParagraph One: Introduce yourself and state your intentions. This 1 to 2-sentence paragraph tells the reviewer who you are and why you are submitting your cover letter and resume. For companies with multiple job openings, this paragraph also tells the reviewer which pile to put your resume in. Your name is at the bottom of the letter in the signature line, so you don’t need to repeat it here. Instead, describe the type of person you are.Example: As an experienced sales and marketing professional, I am interested in the position of regional sales manager with the XYZ Company.Paragraph Two: Summarize your qualifications for the position. Focus on your abilities, not your specific skills. (Abilities are personal characteristics; skills are specific behaviors you can perform. You can learn skills, if needed, but abilities tell what kind of person you are.) The description of your abilities lets the reviewer know if you will be able to learn the skills and how you will perform in a professional environment.However, be careful of using “buzz words” without illustration. You can briefly address your professional history in this paragraph as a way to illustrate your abilities. 3 to 4 sentences should be sufficient.Example: I am a creative, yet focused, professional with strong managerial skills. My knowledge of system integration, coupled with my leadership abilities, has enabled me to identify and enact efficiencies in even the most complicated organizational environments. For example, in my most recent position, I created new quality control processes and instructed inter-departmental teams on their use. Although I am a “company man,” I am also an individual thinker, seeking new opportunities for the company to reach target markets and surpass financial goals.Paragraph Three: In this paragraph, you answer this question: “Why are you applying for this position?” In answering this question, you address two issues. First, describe how this position fits your abilities and interests. In a sense, you are saying that this position is appropriate for who you are now. Second, describe how this position will help you advance your career goals. This tells the reviewer that you have a strong interest in the position and will do what you can to succeed and grow. Again, 3 to 4 sentences will be enough.Example: The leadership and marketing perspective required for a regional sales manager align with my abilities and experiences. I am enthusiastic about expanding my broad knowledge of the market and diverse populations, two aspects of this position I find particularly exciting. Furthermore, this position will assist me to advance into progressively higher responsibilities, and it will provide the satisfaction I earn by succeeding in new and challenging responsibilities.Paragraph Four: The final paragraph is short, 1 – 2 sentences only. In this paragraph, you bring your resume cover letter to a close by thanking the reviewer and by calling for action. You say “thank you” because that is polite and professional. (After all, the person has read this far and deserves your gratitude.) The action step is essential. Here you answer the question “What’s next?” Will you call the person? Do you want the person to contact you? Do you want to set up an interview? State the action as the final sentence.Example: Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to meeting with you to discuss how I can support the mission of the XYZ Company.Word Choice to Express Your IdeasThe content of your cover letter is important, but so is how you express your ideas. The words you use affect how the personnel manager interprets the content. Based on our work helping clients prepare resumes, we have created a list of 7 words your resume needs, words that will create a favorable impression of you.1. SuccessfullyCompanies want to hire winners. Use this word to describe your accomplishments in a prior responsibility.Example: I successfully negotiated a new contract for services.2. LeadershipCompanies want to hire leaders. Use this word to describe your involvement with task and project teams.Example: Under my leadership, the customer service unit managed all client records.3. TeamCompanies want to hire people who can cooperate with others to accomplish company goals. Use this word to describe your involvement with colleagues.Example: Our team was responsible for answering customers’ questions about products.4. CreatedCompanies want to hire innovators. Use this word to describe new ideas and processes you developed.Example: I created a checklist to track daily service tasks.5. Expanded/Increased (the verb, not the adjective)Companies want to hire people that will help them grow. Use this word to describe your participation in company growth.Example: During this time, the company expanded the product line to include 2 new models.6. Support (the verb, not the noun)Companies want to hire people who will assist the management team. Use this word to describe your relationship with your former supervisors.Example: I supported the division director by compiling financial data.7. WillCompanies want to hire people who are confident about their ability to deliver what they promise. Use this word to describe what you will do if hired.Example: I will solve customer software and hardware problems.Some of these words may not apply to your resume or cover letter. However, if you think carefully about your prior experiences, you will find that you can use most of them. Using these words does not guarantee that you will get the job you want, but they will help you make a good impression.Final ThoughtsEffective writing and the correct use of writing mechanics are very important. Once you have developed the draft of your resume and cover letter, you will need to edit it carefully.

As a headhunter since I was 23 and now owner of my own recruitment agency, the answer to this question is NO 99% of the time.Here’s why:#1. The cover letter is an outdated legacy process to job applications that is no longer relevant or useful.As a modern day job seeker, candidates need to understand first of all the origin of why a cover letter exists. Back in the day, before the internet existed, everyone needed to read the newspaper for roles available and apply by literally faxing and mailing letters with resumes attached and, lo and behold, the cover letter.Of course sending in a random resume would be weird and out of context, so a cover letter was created to explain what was going on. Fast forward 50, 20 years, we no longer need cover letters because we have a MULTITUDE of sources to get a feel of who a candidate is and obviously the internet substitutes the need to write a diligent letter upon every application.#2. Other than the one or two hiring managers who like to read cover letters, the rest of them (recruiters included) have zero time to read every letter.Here and there, you’ll hear of a hiring manager who lauds and praises how a cover letter changed the candidate’s perception or was so critical to a candidate being hired. That’s called hype, folks. In the real world, NOBODY reads these things. It’s a complete waste of time.If I wanted to interview a candidate, the first thing I do is ignore the self-proclamations of awesomeness and go straight to the internet (surprise, surprise), hop onto LinkedIn and bam, that tells me a LOT more about a person than what they write.The main reason why so many people in a hiring capacity are NOT reading cover letters is 100% related to the speed at which modern corporate cultures work. Everyone is so stressed, running low on time, and in a rush to hire, that they’re not going to carefully dissect cover letters. In the real world, you’re lucky if your interviewer really studied your profile. Sadly, in many cases, interviewers are so harried they’re literally just refreshing their mind immediately at the interview with you and they’ll repeat themselves more often than not.TIP: Many junior hiring managers (or old school hiring managers) are excited to read cover letters, but again, that’s not the norm. Most HR staff/internal recruiters, hiring managers, headhunters, and even colleagues will not read cover letters, the resume (and LinkedIn profile) is much more important.#3. A cover letter is not indicative of anything other than the ability of someone to write one document that is hopefully coherent.Other than the skill of writing one cover letter, a cover letter doesn’t really prove anything about a candidate. Worse yet, God forbid if you have spelling or grammatical errors in your cover letter, that actually hurts you a LOT more than it helps you.Similarly, if your reader just doesn’t like the way you write, you’ll end up really screwing yourself over if your reader infers all types of incorrect assumptions about you based on what you wrote about. Don’t forget, unconscious bias, personal views, play such a big part in the job-getting process that you really want to limit issues on that front.Again, due to the limited use and outdated nature of what a cover letter is used for, there really is no utilitarian purpose this document can do so don’t waste too much of your time with this. Keep it as simple as possible.What does this mean for you, the candidate?Knowing how the job ecosystem works, it’s not like you have a choice about the cover letter subject, ESPECIALLY if you’re a new grad or a job-seeker mainly using portals to apply for jobs. It’s a mandatory field for the most part that you’ll need to either attach or copy-and-paste the cover letter in the portal to continue along the online application process.Only candidates being represented by headhunters like myself that are highly prospected and sought out by employers in extremely candidate-tight markets, can bypass all these steps. Recruiters will submit your resume directly to the hiring manager. I don’t know about other recruiters, but nobody I know in my industry (and I recruit recruiters for a living) EVER sends out a single cover letter. I certainly didn’t.Why don’t recruiters submit cover letters of their candidates to their client, the hiring manager?It’s because it’s our job to screen the candidate and write the coversheet that summarizes our findings. It’s in our words, not in the candidates’ own words. The client who is the hiring manager ultimately who will hire the candidate, wants to understand what we covered in our interview process. They don’t want to read all these self-written self-promoting documents. They want to understand the candidate’s story from our vantage point after the interview.So recruiters will submit the resume, a coversheet that go overs key points (they should, some don’t bother), and also a write-up that summarizes why you think the candidate is a strong one, worth interviewing. Most times, candidates who are prospected by recruiters in such hot demand that they can bypass every step, and again as long as they’re willing to talk, they can just use the LinkedIn profile in lieu of both the resume and the cover letter.NOTE: Sometimes, it’s like pulling teeth to get candidates to send their resumes. Most recruiters just end up doing whatever they can to get the interview booked, with or without the resume. If you ask a top candidate to write a cover letter, you may just get laughed out of the room. These top candidates in their fields don’t have any extra time to write college-level essays that junior candidates or the unemployed must do. I (nor any colleagues of mine or my team) don’t ever dare to ask, let alone submit, cover letters.In certain markets where there just aren’t enough talented niche specialists, our clients will literally say to us, “we’re so desperate for candidates, you don’t even need to send me their resume, just send me their LinkedIn profile and we’ll interview.” This has happened so many times, it’s almost the rule, not the exception.However, most candidates are not in a position that they’re being highly sought after by legions of recruiters, thus you need to be prepared how to work each step of the recruitment process.What should you do in regards to the Cover Letter?The best strategy here is to toe the line and write a solid, basic cover letter that provides as little information as possible. Don’t write an essay, it is sure to be ignored most of the time. Again, worse yet, it can hurt you if it’s egregiously long-winded, self-aggrandizing, or just irrelevant to the task at hand that the employer is looking to hire for.Write a simple cover letter according to the how-to here and just get on with the rest of your application portfolio. Build out your LinkedIn profile, obtain LinkedIn recommendations, create an amazing resume, and send out as MANY reachouts as you can directly through LinkedIn to direct hiring managers. If you qualify for recruiter representation, leverage them as well.TIP: In most cases, if you’re to be represented by recruiters, they would have already reached out to you assuming you are searchable via LinkedIn with the right title/profile built out. If headhunters haven’t already tried to solicit you, it could very well be that there aren’t a ton of recruitment agencies operating in your job type/skillset/career level/location to help represent you. Headhunters don’t exist in all markets, in fact, it’s more often than not that they don’t exist in most markets.In ConclusionThere’s the mumbo-jumbo la-la-land advice that most schools, teachers, educators, theory-based recruitment “experts” will present to you as the gospel when it comes to careers and job stuff.But the real world usually is completely different. You’re better off utilizing your time to build up your job experience, learn communication skills, written prowess to write strong content for your resume and LinkedIn and to learn how to use LinkedIn and direct reachouts to engage in creating phone calls. That’s the real opportunity to increase your odds of finding a job by selling yourself verbally to present yourself as a cut above the rest.

At least an hour, maybe more depending on how much you’re researching the company and how easy it is to find information.For example you should do your work in finding out:Who to address the cover letter toand this is not always easy since many HR people don’t want to give out their names and/or contact information because so many people reach out to them. You may be able to find it on LinkedIn, or on another social media channel, but you may not. There may be 5 people listed on their corporate site and you may have to make a phone call to confirm who you should send it towards.What they have on their ‘careers’ pageTake time to read what they have written there-because it’s not just copywriters who are bored creating that content. (Ok sometimes it is, but usually it’s not) If they are going out of their way to mention teamwork in their corporate site, then you will make sure that you address teamwork in your cover letter.What the news/press/social media says about the companyDo you really want to apply there if they are about to be bought out? If so, you can mention that in your cover letter. “While HuffingtonPost is insinuating that you’ll be bought out, I consider that a strength because the last two startups I worked for were bought out and I am comfortable working in a transitional setting.What are the other people who work there focusing onIf you see that everyone who works at this company has a twitter handle and you’re not actively using yours, maybe it’s time for you to consider if they’ll like that. They will be looking at your social media, so why not look at theirs and use that information in your cover letter. Especially the team you’d ideally be working forWhether or not the cover letter is actually going to be readThat’s right, most companies don’t read them, but if they do, you have to have a good one. So you want to take the time to find out if a person will actually see it before you write the letter, otherwise you don’t have to spend the time actually crafting the letter.Then it comes to the actual writing of the letter. Most people start with a template, but a really good cover letter really personalizes it to the person that they’re writing to, the company they’re writing to and the team you’re applying to work with. If you don’t have a template, I would add another 20 minutes to a half hour for you to find one online or email a mentor for one.Often people just use the job description and write the cover letter to that, but then the ones that do their research and write the cover letter based on that really stand out stronger.I also would recommend adding another hour (or day) to send your cover letter to someone you trust to proofread it as the people who read cover letters are very particular about them.