When you are looking for your dream job, sending your CV is not enough to make a good impression to the recruiter. Companies receive hundreds of CVs on a daily basis, bust most of the applicants forget the most essential part, the Cover Letter.
Follow these tips, and make your next cover letter stand out from the rest of the stack.
- Be a Copycat
While I know that you have ample accomplishments and abilities—and want to share them all with everyone —not every experience is going to be relevant to every position. So how do you know what to keep and what to put on the chopping block?
Here’s the secret: When employers create a job description, it’s essentially a checklist of the things they’re looking for in an employee. So, in your cover letter, you want to tick off as many of those checkboxes as possible.
In order to make it easy for an employer to see that you have what they’re looking for, mimic the job description—not word for word, of course, but by finding the things that the company is looking for and highlighting specific examples of how you have them. This will help you focus on credentials that are really important—and help the employer focus on why you’re the perfect match for the job.
- Be Skill-Focused
Most people CV’s structured around the jobs they’ve held, rather than their skills. So turn your letter into an opportunity to highlight on 2-4 of your relevant abilities. Structure each paragraph around one of the skills you’ve chosen to highlight, then write 2-3 sentences about how your experiences specifically showcase them.
Again, you don’t need to worry about covering everything, or even necessarily about being chronological. With this strategy, you’ll avoid repeating your resume—making the most of the space you have in your cover letter, and not wasting the time of your potential employer.
- Be Specific
Just like your resume, you want your letter to get very specific when you talk about your accomplishments. Give them facts, figures, and numbers. Tell them how much money you raised, how many people you organized, and just how big and impressive your accomplishments are. (The only caveat to this: If your numbers aren’t really large enough to impress the company, leave them out.)
- Be Yourself
You shouldn’t ever step over the line of professionalism, but crafting an engaging letter with some color will catch people’s eyes and make them think, “Wow, this would be a fun person to work with.” And that might be just enough to set you apart from all the other qualified applicants out there.
The good news is, the more you write, the easier it becomes. And while you may never list writing cover letters as one of your favorite activities, with these tips and a little bit of work, you’ll be on your way to writing great letters—and more importantly, landing those interviews .