Cover Letter Handbook: Fill & Download for Free

I don't like to see that kind of formal, boilerplate, cover letter that old school job searching handbooks recommend.But I DO want to hear what it is about my company that intrigued you and why you may be a match. That may be a one-paragraph email, but give me *something*. This would work on me:Dear Pipewise,I found out about you guys on the Benchmark website. I took a look at what you are doing, and it really intrigued me...it seems like a real unfilled market need, and I'm surprised that no one has cracked it. I also love the background of your team and the company culture you describe in your blog.I graduated from college a couple of years ago and have been working at Old Republic Bank but really want to make a switch over into tech. I want to start in inside sales - I spend most of my day pitching clients over the phone already, and I've been taking classes at night on sales methodologies and best practices.I'm happy to come in and help you set up meetings with clients and help close business over the phone. I'm aware of the heavy lifting you need to do to make a new company work, and that's what I'm looking for.I'd love to discuss more. Please contact me at [email protected].

The key question is: how do I get noticed by the recruitment department? Or, better: How do I stand out from the thousands of Resumes and Cover Letters they receive every day?The whole selection process, from resume screening to problem solving tests and case interview is trying to answer one, single, big question: is this candidate someone that I can:Quickly train (tomorrow)Send to a client (the day after tomorrow)?The above questions may seem weird, but that’s exactly what consultants and recruiters are obsessed with. Consulting firms hire you for your potential, NOT for what you know. They expect you to be an incredibly fast learner and someone who understands and structures problems in a simple and logical way. Moreover they expect you to be able to establish relationships and gain trust from clients, often people much more senior than you. Here’s our advice to build a resumes showcasing your potential as a future consultant, whatever your background is:RULE #1: ONE PAGERecruiters get easily frustrated by lack of synthesis and will only read one page per résumé. It is vital for you to summarise your story on a single printable page.RULE # 2: ACHIEVEMENTS, NOT ROLESRecruiters are not passionate about roles. Unless you were an astronaut or a secret agent, you have limited chances of impressing a recruiter with your past positions. Employers are looking for achievements. Each bullet point on your CV should show how you made a difference in your role, not the title you had on your business card. It takes multiple iterations and a lot of refining to nail the shift from roles to fact-based achievements, but the difference is striking, as shown by the following exampleRole oriented“Organized monthly review meetings with CEO, set agenda and sent updates to top management”Fact-based achievements oriented“Streamlined intra-company communication flows by organizing weekly review meetings with the CEO, identifying key issues to be discussed and aligning all top management”Even if content is the same, the rephrased version shows the way in which you brought change to the company, and thus transforms an executive assistant role such as “agenda setting” into highly appreciated prioritization skills such as “identifying key issues”.RULE #3: SHOWCASE YOUR SKILLSYou will showcase your competencies in the list of achievement-based bullet points. Some résumés outline competencies directly, e.g. “showed analytical skills by creating a model for the tyre market forecast”. Recruiters, however, prefer you to list the achievements using the right buzzwords, e.g. “analysed trends in the tyre market and created a model which forecast demand for the next 5 years”There is no point in outlining what skills you displayed, as the reader will guess them if you use the right buzzwords.The five skills McKinsey and other consulting firms are looking for are the following:Personal impactProblem solvingEntrepreneurshipLeadershipAn overall orientation toward achievementThe test of whether a bullet point should make it in your resume is: is it addressing one of the five skills listed above?Finally, remember that writing a résumé is an iterative process. Make sure you are not blinded by your own biases towards your résumé. Try to get as much external feedback as possible and keep refining your piece. You’ll be surprised at the improvement potential for a resume that you considered almost perfect.For (many) more additional tips, a detailed explanation of how to build your achievements and a FREE copy of our RESUME AND COVER LETTER HANDBOOK visit our Resume page on My Consulting Coach.

You should never apply for a job unless you know why you are applying.What is it about the company, people, and products that got you excited? How are they good match for what you want to do?What I'd recommend is this:For each position you are applying for, do your homework and decide why you want to work at the company.Write a brief 1-2 paragraph email to the hiring manager explaining why. Make sure the email has at least as much about them as about you.Include it with the application.Don't do the formal, boilerplate, BS cover letter than job searching handbooks like to push.As a hiring manager, I always want to know why an application wants this job and not just a job. And I want to know how they can help my company, not just how my company can help them. Folks who both know that and take the time to write it down stand out to me.It also encourages precisely the kind of discipline you should be approaching a job search with anyway.