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Writing The Perfect Cover Letter

Along with your resume, your cover letter is crucial and can be a deal-breaker when it comes to helping you secure a job you’re applying for. Sometimes the smallest areas of your cover letter that weren’t thoroughly looked over, or you didn’t think were important, can be what will either get you the position you’re looking for or not. 

If you’re able to get a nearly perfect cover letter then your chances of getting the job that you’re applying for are much higher. Although it may feel impossible, writing the perfect cover letter isn’t as difficult as you may expect. With a few of our top tips, you’ll be a pro at it in no time. 

It’s Not Your Resume 

Let’s clear one thing up; your cover letter isn’t your resume. They are two entirely different things and it’s important that you treat them as such. Don’t make the mistake of making your cover letter just a different version of your resume. That’s a sure and certain way to get hiring mangers uninterested. 

Instead, go beyond your resume. Pick just a few, no more than three, of your abilities and skills to highlight. From there, you want to expound on it in a way that you couldn’t in your resume. Your resume tells a brief overall view of your abilities and skills, your cover letter should give examples and dive further into them. 

The more evidence that you can give potential employers about your skills the more impressed they’ll be. If you can include numbers, whether data, charts, or other measurements, then do. Hiring managers want to know how you benefited from the last company you worked for and how you brought value to the position. 

Don’t Show The Negatives 

Your cover letter shouldn’t be one giant apology for what’s missing in your resume. If you’re missing a particular skill, even if you may think it’ll be a necessary one for the job, you don’t want to point it out in your cover letter. That will merely highlight what you’re missing and reasons why they shouldn’t hire you. 

Focus on why you are a good fit for the company and what skills you can bring to the table. You want to draw the hiring manager’s attention to your skills and abilities, not what you’re missing for the job. Show them how you are qualified and explain what makes you the best fit for their company. 

Add Your Personality 

Of course, you want to ensure that you’re professional in your cover letter, but you also want to make sure that the letter has your personality. You’re not a robot and you shouldn’t write like one. Hiring managers want to see that it’s a real person on the other end. Try not to worry about impressing them as much as just being yourself. 

Don’t sound awkwardly formal; trust me, hiring managers aren’t interested in hearing those cliche phrases that they’ve heard in every cover letter sitting in their inbox. Be yourself. Try to incorporate new phrases to grab their attention and let your personality shine through. 

Proofread 

This may seem obvious, but even the smallest typo can get your application tossed in the trash without further review. Hiring managers are reviewing hundreds of applications a day and if you have a single typo included in your cover letter then you can stop right there. No quick breezes over it and glancing through it. 

You’ll want to thoroughly review it before you send it to any companies. Ensure that you have looked over it for typos, misspelled words, and more. You don’t want to take any chances. Double and triple check it until you’re positive that it’s perfect. The best way to ensure that it’s perfect is to ask a friend or to look it over for you.

Create Custom Letters

Hiring managers can tell if you just created one cover letter that you use for every job you submit. It’s important that you put the effort in and customize your cover letter according to each job position that you’re applying for.

Make sure that the letter is specifically targeted to the job that you’re applying for. Take your time and ensure that you’re targeting your abilities and skills to the specific job that you’re applying for. Although it can be difficult and time-consuming to attempt to write an individual letter for each job position, it’s necessary. 

In Conclusion 

Overall, cover letters can be hard to write. It can be hard to know exactly how to plan, but with a few helpful tips, you can write a killer cover letter! With the right amount of knowledge, you’ll be able to write a cover letter that will impress hiring managers as well as your family and friends. Following the tips that we provided above, you can write a cover letter that will guarantee you the job position!