A Cover Letter Should Accompany Your Resume When You Apply For A Position: Fill & Download for Free

Put yourself in the position of the hiring manager.Assume you have a stack of 50 applications to go through and 30 mins to do it - that's 36 seconds per application.Think about what would grab your attention within the first five seconds of reading the cover letter, enough to make you want to go over your 36-seconds-per-application allocation for this particular application and read the full resume.The thing to remember is this - a hiring manager is not, even with the best will in the world, going to want to (or have the time to) read through a couple of paragraphs of text on a cover letter to work out whether it's worth reading the actual resume it accompanies. It's the old adage where you have five seconds to make an impression.So the perfect cover letter will enable the hiring manager to decide, within five seconds of scanning it, whether it's worth reading your resume or not.You might start with a brief, introductory paragraph written in friendly but professional language, but the main part of the cover letter will contain, as bullet points, some details of the achievements, results and successes in your career so far that are relevant to the job and/or company you're applying for.These details should be presented as data - real numbers that are relevant and impressive. You will hopefully know your industry, and the job you're applying for, well enough to know what these might be.Don't say, "I am an expert software engineer with a high level of initiative and strong technical knowledge." Of course you are, and so is everyone else applying for this job. I strongly believe that there is no point making generic, unsubstantiated statements about qualities or personality. Ditto for things like "I am delighted to provide my application for this position" or similar throw-away statements - again, of course you are, and so is everyone else applying.Say something like, "I am a software engineer with a GPA of [x.x] from [XYZ University], and X years of experience working on software projects which are relevant to this particular job and company because [reasons, including data]."Obviously tailor this to your particular stage in your career - maybe your GPA isn't relevant any more, but your experience managing multi-million dollar projects and large teams of people is.Remember that best case, when confronted with a long, dense cover letter, the hiring manager might just ditch it and do a five-second scan of the resume instead; more than likely, though, you'll go on the "maybe" pile, in which case you'd need to hope that the hiring manager has the time and inclination to re-visit your details later - assuming they don't find enough good resumes in the remainder of the ones they're reviewing.Or worst case, you'll go straight to the "no" pile, because the hiring manager knows he/she won't have time later. Believe me, I have sat across the desk from countless hiring managers while they've been reviewing resumes, and the first thing that pretty much all of them did was triage the whole pile like this. They do not go through them one-by-one, reading every word in every paragraph from start to finish.I gave a longer list of bullet points (almost step-by-step) in my answer to How do you get your resume and cover letter noticed?

Every career adviser will tell you that when you prepare a resume, that you need accompany it with a personalized cover letter.If the resume is your personal brochure, then the cover letter is the brochure for the brochure. In essence, the cover letter is the pitch to the reader why they should invest the time in reading your resume.Cover letters were invented and became standard practice in the days when job applicants sent a resume to an employer as a letter by (get this!) the postal service. As in, paper mail. As in, you stick the resume and cover letter in a stamped envelope and drop it in one of those big blue boxes they used to have on every corner. The corporate mailroom would receive the envelope, it would mellow for a few days, and eventually the office delivery person would drop it in the recipient’s inbox (a physical tray which sits on the corner of a person’s desk, usually labeled “IN”) where it would sit for a couple more days. Eventually, the recipient would use a letter opener (a device which looks suspiciously like a dagger) to open the envelope, glance at the cover letter, and decide whether the resume was worth a read.Got all that?Incidentally, next time you complain about how nobody gets back to you the resume you sent to Company X, keep in mind that it used to cost real money - in postage and stationery - to send an application to an employer. I’m just saying that life wasn’t always better in the old days.Times have indeed changed. People don’t apply for jobs the same way. In most cases, an applicant sees a job online and applies either through the corporate website or via a job board like Monster or LinkedIn. Often there isn’t even an opportunity to include a cover letter with your resume.And here’s a dirty little secret of the recruiting world – most recruiters, who act as gatekeepers of the application process, don’t have the time or interest to read a cover letter. They usually take a look at first half of the first page of the resume and decide whether to keep reading. A cover letter, if included, is usually an afterthought. A nicety. An attachment, if you will.And yet, there is a time and a place for a cover letter. It’s a valuable tool for certain situations, because it shows that you care.A cover letter is appropriate – even essential - in the following situations:You are targeting a position in a specific company and you have the contact information of a particular individual or department. If you really, really want to work at Chester’s Advertising Agency, and you have the CEO’s contact information, you have a unique opportunity to make a positive impression. A cover letter allows you to show the passion for working at Chester.You are attending a career fair and want to stand out from the pack. You’ve done your research and identified five employers you would really, really like to work for. Handing the recruiters a cover letter customized to their company along with the resume would demonstrate that extra little bit of effort.Somebody has referred you to an individual at a company. Let’s say that your friend Moe provides you with the contact for their friend Homer who works at the nuclear power plant you’d like to work at. If you don’t include a cover letter with the resume, Homer might never figure out it was Moe that referred you. And you’d like to make Moe look good for referring you, wouldn’t you?You’re emailing a resume to a company. Sometimes job advertisements ask applicants to send an email resume. In the body of the email you should have something to say. A cover letter – even a brief one – helps interest the recipient.A cover letter doesn’t matter so much when:You apply to a job through a company’s website or a job board. Often there’s not an opportunity to even include a cover letter. Even if you attach one, it’ll likely be ignored.You’re canvassing a job fair. You’ll come across a great number of employers you’ve never considered. They won’t expect a cover letter, and it would be impractical to provide one for every exhibitor.Either way, it’s best to be prepared. Have that cover letter ready, you never know when you’re going to need it.

The short answer is yes, a well designed resume will attract more employers than a mediocre resume. See the long answer below for some tips."The Long Answer"Sorry for the length but I like to make sure I fully explain myself when providing my input =) I put together the following list from my personal experience helping to evaluate potential new hires for my employer (not as a hiring manager, but as a valued second opinion), and from personal discussions with close friends who are hiring managers at other engineering/construction companies.MOST IMPORTANT - make sure your resume is well organized. Hiring managers are busy people and can delegate very little time to reading resumes let alone searching through a messy document to find information that is important to them. Develop a consistent, well organized presentation format that allows them to quickly find whatever pertinent information they need and it will instantly set you apart from about 75% of applicants. A good way to check for good organization is to ask a friend or family member who has never read your resume to find a particular piece of information (the school you attended, your most recent employer, software experience, etc). It shouldn't take them any longer than about 30 seconds to find the information you ask them to find. If it fails this test, your resume needs to be reformatted.Keep your resume brief and to the point - Ideally, your resume should be no longer than one page. This is not to say that you can't have a resume that is longer, but if you need to go to that second page, then make sure that EVERY SINGLE ITEM that you have written is pertinent to the job for which you are applying. If you are throwing information in just for "fluff", DON'T!!! Employers will get annoyed and likely skip over the rest of your resume as soon as they start seeing extraneous information. Again, they don't want their time wasted. Whenever you add something to your resume, ask yourself, does this really need to be here?Tailor your resume to the employer - Try to find out as much information about the company (what type of work they do, company values, goals, etc.) and tailor the information you provide in your resume to appeal to these values. The important thing to keep in mind here is that you're selling yourself as an employee, and the more positive selling points you provide, the more likely you are to make the sell.Accompany your resume with a cover letter - It may seem like it's optional, especially when only a resume is requested, but unless they specifically say "NO COVER LETTERS", assume resume means resume AND cover letter. Recognize that they probably won't read the cover letter at first, but if even one thing in your resume interests them slightly, they will be glad there is a well written cover letter in front of the resume to add some color to your resume. If there is not a cover letter, that glimmer of interest they got from your resume will disappear and they'll likely move on to the next resume. Your cover letter is a great place to talk yourself up, and really get the employer excited about interviewing you. The key here is again to sell yourself. This is where you put all that "fluff" that you trimmed out of your resume. If you have experience or a skill set that is not obviously related to the job you are applying to but you feel it would be valuable nonetheless, this is your chance to explain how. This is especially applicable to those who lack direct experience in the field. A point that I used personally when I got my job a few years ago was that I had customer service experience in a drug store, and I could translate that experience into developing good client relations and developing quick rapport with coworkers. Just an example, and obviously drawing connections such as this aren't necessary, but what is necessary is to always remember, the cover letter isn't there for you to describe what you want, but to tell the employer how you'll help them get what they want. I might add that using the advice I'm giving above elicited the comment, "This is one of the best cover letters I've ever read" from the owner of the company for which I work.If you follow these guidelines, you should greatly increase your odds of getting interviews and starting your career anew with a new company. Happy job hunting!!! :-)