What should a cover letter cover?
Charlotte Booth • 23 December 2020
It's an introduction not a biography.
You need to spend as long on this as you can as the cover letter is likely to be looked at before the CV and therefore needs to be an enticing introduction to you and your skills. This does not mean you write a mini (or a full-length) biography here, nor will two lines do. It's important to hit the right tone, and give them enough information.
First things first - have a copy of your CV in front of you, and a copy of the job spec and person spec.
What to include
Your cover letter should be as unique as you are, but there are some key points to remember.
1. Customise
- Always write a new letter for every job application. Although it is acceptable to use a template if you need to, the letter itself should be customised.
2. Personalise
- A letter needs to be addressed to someone personally (e.g. Mr Brown, Ms. Green). Sometimes there is a name on the bottom of the job advert, but if there isn't then search the company website for the name of the HR manager or the head of the department you are applying for. If you genuinely can't find a name then use "Head of HR" or "Recruitment Manager".
3. Tantalise
- Your first paragraph should never start with "My name is ...", they can see this from the CV, the letter sign off or the email address it was sent from and will just get them rolling their eyes. You can start with "I'm applying for the role of ...". But using something more exciting is better to tanatalise them into reading more (e.g. As an experienced Project Manager, I was excited to see this role come up at [company name] a forerunner in the industry). Praise the company, highlight the relevant experience or your passion for the industry.
4. It's all there
- Using the job and person specification you can summarise how your experience makes you the best candidate for the role. These documents tell you exactly what the company is looking for - so use it to guide what you write in the cover letter. If they want an experienced Project Manager - summarise your experience briefly (e.g. Having spent 15 years at Amazon as a Project Manager I have the experience to take on the challenge of working for you). If in doubt, or you find the letter is reading like a dispassionate list, think about how you would tell your gran about what you do.
5. It's about them not you
- Avoid writing about how the company would be great for your career, and how working for them would benefit you. What's more important to the hiring manager is how you can help them, and how your experience will benefit the team.
6. Positivity
- Keep your language positive and never highlight gaps in your CV or aspects of the job description you don't have (e.g. Whilst I have not held the position of Project Manager, I have lots of experience). Write about what you can do, and highlight your strengths and where you DO match the job description.
7. Brevity - A cover letter should be no longer than one A4 side. That doesn't mean 9 point font, single spaced with extended margins. If it is too long, cut the words not the formatting.
Writing a cover letter is not easy but it is worth spending time on it. If you would like some help writing your CV or cover letter why not contact me
today and let's get you on the path to your dream job.
There is nothing more amusing than checking out mediaeval artistic renditions of lions and other heraldic creatures. These beasts, grimacing and gurning are a strange juxtaposition of human, animal and demon and as far from the cute image of Alex from the Madagascar franchise or in fact a real lion as you could possibly get. There are three main reasons mediaeval lions are so ‘bad’ and un-representational; The artists were following a very tight brief. Some of the artists may never have seen a lion, and were following the descriptions they were given. These lions were representing heraldic principals of bravery, nobility and authority; all very human characteristics. When viewed through this lens it becomes more understandable why they look the way they do, but they are still ‘not right’ and not a great tool for learning about lions. Generative AI is very similar to an uninformed but talented mediaeval artist. There is a element of intelligence but at the end of the day it is following a brief, with no actual ‘knowledge’ of the thing it is producing. As an example, if you prompt your generative AI (ChatGPT and the like) to produce a blog for your new product or service, aimed at your ideal customer avatar you will in all likelihood get a mediaeval lion out the other end. Sort of recognisable, and sort of not. This is because AI doesn’t know what a customer is (ideal or otherwise), has no idea what your product or service is and does, and has no true understanding of how this service or product will serve your ideal customer and their needs. Of course, AI is pulling all the information available from the internet to help with its answer but there is no understanding there. There is no determining fact from falsehoods or even which websites are trustworthy and which are not. So, it skims the internet and puts together content which suits the brief as it understands it. This is then when the actual work should start as this content shouldn’t be used in the raw. It should be edited and tweaked by a human who DOES understand the brief, has been a customer (ideal or otherwise) and can imagine what your ideal customer will feel when using your product or services. We are in a world now, where we have generative AI promoting products and services to humans, when it has no concept of what a human is and how it thinks, meaning the marketing department are in fact more important than ever for ensuring content and copy is aimed at humans and human emotions. You could argue that the world would be a more entertaining place if there were more mediaeval lions in it, but it wouldn’t be a great environment for learning, or for basing purchasing decisions on. If you want to maintain the human element in your content, then I would love to help . Explain the brief, your CTA and your ideal client and I will know what I need to ask to get a clear idea before writing. Then you can rest assured your content was written by a human for a human and we can leave the mediaeval lions to the museums.
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