Writing An Effective Cover Letter
The first establishment of contact between employers and applicant are usually achieved through cover letters. The ability to write a good cover letter is crucial to every job seeker for this allows the candidate to make a lasting impression on his future employer.
Cover letters are made or tailored specifically towards your target career or job position. It is very wrong to send out one generic cover letter to multiple employers because it won’t be enough to explain to them on why you are the right person for the job. Your document should only include information, skills, and qualities that you have which are relevant to the position that you are applying for. Any other information that is irrelevant to your targeted position is best to be left out.
On the first part of your paragraph, try to describe your skills and achievements in simple or plain English language. The use of jargons or technical terms is indeed appealing but if your first paragraph is full of cliches and technicality, it is more likely that your reader is just going to stop reading your presentation and go on ahead with the other documents.
Explain briefly what is the purpose of your letter. It is very important that your reader should know immediately that you are applying for a job. Next, explain to them why you are the right person for the job. Remember to keep your sentences short and concise. Long and boring walls of text often makes an employer forget the things that you are trying to tell them once they get to the end of your first paragraph. If possible, try to break down your paragraphs in to short and active sentences so that they could easily understand you.
When you get to the part on where you are to showcase your talents, it is best to construct your sentences in a way or from a point of view where the company is going to benefit from you – not you benefiting from them. Employers only care about what you can do and contribute to make their company grow. By this, you should elaborate on how you can be an asset for their company.
End your letter by thanking your reader and follow it up by a quick assumption of you waiting for their call for a possible interview. It also works if you propose a specific date and time on when you are going to be available for the interview.
Once done, edit your presentation and format it in such a way that it is very easy to navigate and understand. Use bullets, underlines and boldfaces for emphasis and also, try to balance out the distribution of texts and white spaces on your document so it doesn’t look boring. These emphasis tools also helps your reader spot the important things in your cover letter more easily for the fact that the human eye is easily drawn to underlines and boldfaced texts when reading.
Before sending it out along with your resume via e-mail, traditional mail or by resume distribution services, Do not forget to proofread your work to rid your letter of typographical and grammatical errors. It also won’t hurt if you have someone to review your work and have them give constructive comments for further improvement.
