You’ve found the perfect job listing and you’re all prepared to apply: your resume is updated, you’ve painstakingly refilled in all of your resume information because for some reason that’s a thing you have to do, you’ve linked your perfectly designed LinkedIn. You’re pretty sure you’re all set… until you see those dreaded words: “attach cover letter here.”
Do the words “cover letter” stop you in your tracks? It’s time to stop being scared of the cover letter and embrace it instead. I’m going to walk you through how to write a killer cover letter so you can wow the hiring manager looking over your application by showing off just how talented and qualified you are!
First: Reframe your mindset
The most important thing that will help you write your cover letter without being afraid is reframing the way you think about cover letters. Cover letters shouldn’t be something to dread; you need to see them as an opportunity to stand out in a sea of similarly qualified applicants.
The cover letter is the only place where the hiring manager will hear directly from you. In your letter, you need to make them remember you and show them why your experience makes you the perfect fit for this role. Think to yourself, how can I use this one page to stand out and position myself as the best possible candidate for the role? And remember, it is only one page — so you don’t need to be overwhelmed. One page is practically nothing! You can sit down and write a killer cover letter in less than an hour.
Whereas your resume can almost feel depersonalized, with those strategic bullet points limiting the amount you can say about your previous positions, your cover letter gives you the space to expand on your most valuable work experiences. You can really go into how you crushed it at your last job while highlighting your passion for the industry. It’s hard to convey excitement for the role on a resume, but your cover letter offers you the opportunity to say, in your own words, how cool, qualified, and eager you are about this new career opportunity.
So remember: this is your chance to speak directly to the hiring manager! By the end of your letter, how can you get them to think that they just have to interview you for this role?
Some quick mythbusting
Most job advice sites and career coaches will say that you need to write a new cover letter for every job. This is true to some extent. If you’re applying to a role as a digital marketing manager and a role as a software engineer, the same cover letter isn’t going to work for these two completely different positions. But if you’re applying to a lot of jobs with the same title or the same industry, you should be able to write a cover letter you can reuse for all of those postings with only minor tweaks. After you write your first cover letter, you’ll find that you can easily customize this template to fit another role in the same industry by switching out the company name, job title, and adding just a few personalized details to the role.
Of course, if you do this, make sure to proofread extensively — you don’t want to submit a cover letter where you’ve forgotten to switch out the company name from your last application!
Many people fear cover letters because of how much time they take when you need to write one for every posting. But in under 15 minutes, you can tailor a cover letter you wrote for one role to the next simply by doing a little research on the new company.
Time to consult your resources
It’s important to remember that you’re not writing your cover letter in a WiFi-less vacuum. There are so many resources you can consult for help!
One of my favorite places to go when writing a cover letter is your university’s career website. The UConn Center for Career Development’s website offers so many valuable tips and resources for job applications, including an amazing Résumé and Cover Letter Guide. Their guide has instructions for how to write a cover letter based on a job description and résumé, as well as a sample cover letter you can use to inspire your own. The CCD website actually has multiple sample cover letters you can look at for different roles, which are super helpful to read when you’re looking to write yours. UConn isn’t the only school that does this; you can even look at the career websites for schools you don’t go to (no one says the Yale or Harvard websites are off limits) for more help!
Another helpful step you can take is to ask friends who have been hired if you can see their cover letters. Going to your friends in the workforce is a great idea because you know their cover letter got them somewhere! Seeing what they wrote and how they positioned themselves as a great fit for their current job can be really helpful with the mindset that they got the role.
Additionally, a good ole Google search can be helpful too. “Cover letter tips” or “guide to the cover letter” are both good places to start. However, don’t let all of the research and outside feedback cement itself in your head too solidly. Ultimately, there is no one right way to write a cover letter! Find a method that works for you and absorb some valuable tips, but don’t absorb everything.
Okay, Let’s get into it
A quick disclaimer before we begin: this is the way I write my cover letters. There are plenty of ways you can structure your letter — this is just a general guideline to help you get started. After you break your writer’s block, you can have fun playing around with different formats!
The very first thing you’ll want to do is find the name of the hiring manager (if you can). LinkedIn is a helpful place to do this; you can go to the company’s profile and look for the person in HR or whoever is named as the hiring manager. If you’re lucky, their name might even be in the job description. Or, if you’re sending your cover letter after you’ve already sent over your résumé, sometimes the name of the person who will be reviewing your application will be at the bottom of the automatic email reply you can when you sent your original application. There are a lot of methods to find this person, but don’t stress if you can’t — you can always use “Dear Hiring Manager.”
Before you get any farther in writing, make sure you have the job description next to you; you’re going to want to infuse keywords while you’re writing, and to make sure you’re addressing specific responsibilities in the role. You’ll also want to pull up the company’s website; this will be helpful as you write your introductory paragraph.
Okay, so the first paragraph: this is where you want to establish how you found the job, affirm your interest, and name the position and company. You might want to open with a statement of enthusiasm for the position, then move into a sentence that shows you did your research on the company. I like to reference a specific aspect of the company culture or something I found on the company’s career page that ties into my own experience in this section to show that I did my research and that I’m a great fit for this position. You can also mention how you found the job or if you were referred by someone. Then you can end your introductory paragraph with a kind-of thesis statement that tells the hiring manager “why you.” Boom — first paragraph done!
Now, you’re going to pick one to two specific work experiences to highlight in your next one or two paragraphs. While you might be describing positions that are on your résumé, you need to go beyond what’s already written on your résumé; your cover letter shouldn’t be saying the same things the hiring manager has already read in the rest of your application. This is a great chance to introduce information that just doesn’t come through on a résumé. That’s why I love cover letters; they’re your chance to speak to the hiring manager and show why your résumé experience makes you qualified for this specific role.
In these paragraphs, your goal is to show why you’re the perfect person for this role. This is where it’ll be helpful to have the job description and company website easily accessible in order to speak specifically to how you can help the company, and show that you can do what you need to do to solve the company’s problems.
We’re almost done — now we just need to write the conclusion. And this is the easiest part; we’re going to keep it short and sweet. First, thank the hiring manager for taking the time to review your application, and once again state how excited or interested you are in the position. Finally, include your contact information, and maybe a statement about being happy to answer any more questions.
Add a “Sincerely, [your name]” and you’re done! Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?
Time to ace your cover letter
So now you know everything you need to know to write an amazing cover letter that will wow your future employer! There’s no need to fear the cover letter; it might just be the thing that lands you your next job.
A quick caveat: though these tips are killer (and I’m totally unbiased), there’s no guarantee that your cover letter will get you an interview. So many things about the application process are subjective, and there’s no way to know exactly what a hiring manager is prioritizing when they’re reading through your application. So don’t get discouraged if your cover letter isn’t getting you results yet. It might just be a matter of time, or you can go back and tweak some things to see if that changes anything.
All that being said, the most important thing you can do is write a letter you feel confident about. Submit your letter knowing that you sold the reader on your best skills and how qualified you are for the open position.
And even when the job posting doesn’t call for a cover letter, it might be a smart idea to write one anyway. Remember, the cover letter is how you stand out — and writing one when you don’t need to is just another way to distinguish yourself in a competitive job pool. If there’s not somewhere to add one on your application, taking the time to research the company and finding an email to send your cover letter to can make a huge difference. Sometimes taking the extra step to send that cover letter is what’s going to land you the interview!
And now that you have all the information you need to write a fantastic cover letter, there’s no reason not to go the extra mile — what do you have to be scared of?