Cover Letter For Job Applicant: Fill & Download for Free

Big disclaimer: I am just one lowly recruiter. There are a lot of other people in my profession and I don't speak for us all. But what I'm about to say is what I feel is an accurate sample size of what most of my peers in my field can all agree on.Hard truth on this one: absolutely not. Not only do we not usually read them, most of the time we don't even open that attachment or give cover letters a cursory glance. It's such a waste of time. Many companies have even stopped asking for them altogether.But I'll tell you who DOES read cover letters: hiring managers. Not all. In fact, a lot don't, but in the entire hiring equation, were I to assign likelihood, a hiring manager is more prone to read the cover letter than anyone else involved. And even then, I'd add another factor that narrows the field - hiring managers at small companies with lower hiring volume (like a small non-profit) are more likely to read a cover letter than a hiring manager at companies like Amazon or KPMG.In my opinion, if you want your cover letter to be read, do these things:Don't apply online but email your resume to a recruiter or hiring manager instead.Don't make it an actual "letter." Instead, make it the body of the email with your resume attached. When people attach a letter AND a resume to an email, let me just say only one attachment is getting opened, and it's always the resume. So don't even bother.Keep it short and to the point. Like seriously, five sentences is all that's necessary. If you're in sales or something maybe a few bullet points. But no multiple paragraphs. Long cover letters are simply not going to get read.Tailor it. Get the name of the company right in the cover letter. When I did campus recruiting for new grads at Expedia, 1 out of 2 times, the candidate got this wrong. They were applying to companies at such volume it wasn't uncommon to see "I'm excited about the possibility of an opportunity at Microsoft or Google or some other company that was not the company for which I worked."Inject some personality into it...please. If your cover letter sounds like that of everyone else, you have completely defeated the purpose.Similar to "objectives" on a resume, cover letters are a bit of a throwback to another era in job hunting where we didn't have fancy applicant tracking systems that connected a candidate's application with a tangible job/requisition. But for some reason we want to continue this exercise, so we may as well do it with more flair. I would also say cover letter requirements are industry specific. In tech one of the more evolved industries, I feel like they're totally unnecessary. That may not be the case in finance or management consulting, or any of the "bedrock" industries.

A first time job seeker usually has a lot of pressure of finding a job quick. And, the best way to make to an interview is a well written and well formatted cover letter. Not that your resume does not hold importance, but a cover letter is the first and foremost impression that you have on an employer. As a first time job seeker, there can be some mistakes that you could make when drafting a cover letter. The following article talks about the importance of a cover letter for a first time job seeker and 7 things that are a must in a cover letter for a fresher.Entry level candidates are usually known to make some mistakes or rather miss on some important aspects of a cover letter. These misses can cost them a lot in terms of a job application. Here are 7 things that an entry level candidate must do in a cover letter:Read full article:Job cover letter for Fresher

The fastest a candidate ever failed was two words into his cover letter. The position was related to quality assurance, and the cover letter started with “I is.”Somehow, the applicant got through to me by phone. I don't know how he got my number, or why the call didn't go to HR, but he started arguing with me that it was no big deal.Not only was he wrong for the job, since he either didn't proofread his own cover letter, or did proofread it and missed that, I don't know why he thought that showing me that he was argumentative and belligerent would improve his chances.