Creating a Winning Cover Letter


by Amber C. Smith - Date: 2006-12-19 - Word Count: 403 Share This!

Cover letters are generally poorly written and boring. It's true. Most of them just repeat what was already in the resume and show no personality at all. I don't know how the poor human resource people survive having to look through them day after day. The problem is that most people don't know what should go in their cover letter. The following are the cover letter essentials.

Expanded Experience

What do I mean by expanded experience? You want to detail some of the experience in your resume and expand on it. Don't just repeat the information. In your cover letter, you're trying to sell yourself, so talk about what you did, how it increased your competence, and why it matters to this company.

Specifics

Whatever you do, whatever you say, BE SPECIFIC! The specific details of your experiences are far more interesting than a few general statements about what you do in your current job or what you learned during a special training. Details will make or break your cover letter.

Personality

I know you have one, but if you write the normal type of cover letter, I'd probably be surprised to know that you had more going for you than being a bump on a rock. Let your personality shine through in your cover letter. Share your enthusiasm for the job and your interest in your field. They want to know that you would enjoy what you want to do.

Contact Information

Obvious, I know, but include your contact information. A lot of people forget to include the basic contact information including phone numbers, email, etc. You can also be proactive and tell the company you will check back with them on a certain date, but be sure they have your information in case they want to talk to you sooner.

Say Thank You

Your momma taught you to say thank you, so be sure you say it. Thank the reader for their time and state that you hope to hear from them soon. They will appreciate this little note of thoughtfulness that says a lot about the type of employee you could be.

Send It Correctly

If you're sending your resume and cover letter electronically, please make sure that you save it in Plain Text format. Otherwise, the company may not be able to read it, and they probably won't contact you for another copy. Plain text can be opened by any type of Word Processor, and the company will appreciate your efforts.


Related Tags: online degree programs, campus degree programs, online degrees, career learning center

Review more industry related articles by Amber Smith at www.CareersandEducation.com. Amber Smith is a CareersandEducation.com feature writer that often covers topics relating to Campus and Online Degree Programs and Career Planning.

Your Article Search Directory : Find in Articles

© The article above is copyrighted by it's author. You're allowed to distribute this work according to the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license.
 

Recent articles in this category:



Most viewed articles in this category: