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In my career, I have written a few and read quite a few, these are cover letters...

- The value of a cover letter -

For recruiters, choosing the best candidate for the job is not just a matter of skills and experience. If this was the case, the cover letter would be completely unnecessary, hiring would be done only on the basis of the CV/résumé.

But other things matter such as personal traits, habits at work, ease in communicating or maintaining professional relationships, intelligence and enthusiasm. This cover letter is meant to provide an overview of it all.

- Knowing the Big Shot is not necessary -

In general, the announcements mention the name of the contact person, by default « Dear Director of recruitment » is entirely acceptable.

We can ask the recruiter to forward our message to the person we want to contact. But if we don't want to do this, and we haven't found the email address on the employer's website, it is sometimes possible to reconstruct it, based on the email address of another company contact (If the secretary's email address is firstname.lastname@company.com, we can probably conclude that our contact address is firstname.lastname@company.com).

- No need for a shock sentence -

We have to sell ourselves, but we are not an advertising slogan. So let's keep it simple, such as: « I am writing to you in response to the XXX advertisement for the position of XXX » or « I am pleased to apply for the position of XXX ».

- Let’s not summarize or copy/paste our CV -

The ideal application will consist of a few pages at best : a one-page double-sided CV and a single-sided cover letter. So let's not waste one of these pages on redundancy.

Our cover letter will need to go beyond our basic work history, it should talk about things that prove we are made for the job. To help us, let's think of it as a letter to a friend, explaining why this position interests us and why we would be the perfect candidate, outlining our successes and our approach to the job.

Thus, to apply for an assistant position which requires a very advanced organization, we could specify that we follow our personal budget in an Excel spreadsheet with colour codes (recruiters would be interested by this information, because it demonstrates our attention to detail). Or maybe we are regularly approached by others to help them solve problems, or we find some satisfaction in tidying up the chaos. These details illustrate what we can bring to the position and should be included in our cover letter.

- Saying it, is good, proving it, is better -

Let’s not just say that we are organized, that we are good manager, etc. ; we must demonstrate this by talking about our achievements and experiences that bear witness to it. As follows : « In addition to being flexible, I also attach great importance to details. One of my recent projects was coordinating documentation for an event. I collected and corrected the information received from each department. Then, I proceeded to formatting and finalizing the said documents, making sure that each line was perfectly aligned and that everything was clear to everyone. As a result, the convention was a success and we received congratulations for the clarity and precision of the documentation ... »

- Unusual things will be mentioned there -

The cover letter offers an opportunity to provide context to some things that might otherwise seem confusing. We have to express/explain ourselves, when we are overqualified/underqualified but we are really enthusiastic, or if we operate a professional retraining. If we don't provide context, it will be easy for recruiters to put us in the « Not Suitable » category.

- No sample letter and let’s pay attention to the tone -

NO SAMPLE LETTER! This means that we can't send the same letter over and over again, let's make sure it always matches the announcement we're applying for.

Although some companies appreciate rigid and formal cover letters, our letter will be stronger, if we write it in a conversational tone, allowing us to show a bit of our personality (however, let's try not to be too familiar).

- A little structure -

A quick framework of our letter :

§1 - The reason to send our CV (in response to an offer, spontaneous application, ...)

§2 - The reasons which motivate us to integrate this sector, this company/business/association/organization/group/Etc.

§3 - Our concrete assets and this small part of us which can bring them a plus.

§4 - A little word about our future interview and a little reminder of our contact details.

§5 - Form of politeness.

Conclusions

What matters most is its content. We will need to make sure that the text is well written and that there are no spelling mistakes. We should not forget to attach the letter and CV, even in an email where we will include our full name in the name of the file (this makes sharing easier and doing it in PDF will preserve the layout).

If after 10 days we haven't heard from them, let's call (yes, by phone) and introduce ourselves.

What do you think?