Cover Letters

As an educator and coordinator at learning centers, I have seen my share of cover letters; and as a freelance writer who submits to publishers, enters writing competitions, and bids on writing projects every month, I have written more than my share of cover letters. While I would not imply any special expertise, I would suggest a few steps to take or things to keep in mind as you write your own covers.

Know that you have something like three seconds to make an impression on a busy reader. Be he a board member considering which students to admit or be she a CEO determining the best candidate for the position that just opened up, the reader is likely slogging through hundreds of cover letters and will need, therefore, to use a process of elimination. Avoid being tossed into the “NO” pile.

In your greeting, use the name of the person or persons doing the hiring or accepting—if you can get this information. If you can, call the company and ask to whom you should address your cover. If you are applying online, in response to an online call for workers, do your homework by researching the company and finding names in the “About Us” pages of the company’s site. If you absolutely cannot find a name, be careful to avoid the antiquated “Dear Sir,” as in this age of gender equality, you are just as likely if not more so to be writing to a woman. If you have a name, use it; that is, do not assume the first name is gender-specific and mistakenly write “Dear Mz. Thing” just because the first name is Gayle, or “Hello Mr. So-and-so” because the first name is Sam.

Identify in the body of your cover letters why you would be good for the position/slot—NOT why or how much you want to be accepted/hired. Use this valuable space to point out important skills, experience, and abilities, with specific examples. That is, instead of saying what a positive attitude you have and what a team player you are, write how your five years as a PEACE CORPS worker points to your abilities to give optimum service to others in need. Just because you WANT the job doesn’t prove you are right for it, in other words.

Okay, so you might say, “But that information is all in my résumé/vitae!” Yes, but it is likely in the résumés/vitas of the other applicants, too. And your selling of yourself starts with the cover letters you use as encapsulated versions of your history and as a greeting or calling card, if you will, which has limited space to snag the readers’ attentions.

Be sure to spell correctly. Especially, spell the people’s names and the company names correctly. Nothing says “I will be a sub-par employee who gives little attention to detail” like the cover letters that are left un-proofed and un-revised. Use a spell-checker, yes, but also manually check or have someone objective check, for words such as homonyms (too/to/two, bear/bare) elude the spell-checker, as do contextual words…any words that are real words spelled correctly but used in the wrong context. I once had to write cover letters to the local libraries, asking for support for a pilot program for students. In the closing, I noted that we at XYZ wanted to do the breast job possible. This would have, as you can imagine, been a nightmarish mistake had I not caught it with my own eyes (after having spell-checked).

So go out and get that job or launch yourself into one of the few seats in the department at that graduate school. Be the one who stands out. Be the writer of the cover letters that makes potential employers or educators stop, laugh, say, “Wow,” or say “Yes!” rather than the one whose paperwork gets an automatic “No.”