The Fine Art of Writing an Effective Cover Letter

By David K Chan

One of the most powerful tools in resume writing isn’t always an obvious one, but it is your formal introduction to a potential employer or recruiter. It is the oft-misunderstood and dreaded cover letter. A cover letter sets the tone regarding your thought process, as well as your writing and communication skills.

I know it seems like a redundant piece of work, but it conveys a different side of your background. You use a cover letter as a way to communicate interest in a job or company, an introduction on how you came to find the position and a way to display your background in a different light.

I’ve seen many cover letters which are short and “sweet”, but convey little about a candidate’s personality. Others are long, boring reiterations of their resume but in paragraph format. Ideally, you should write a cover letter with a little bit of elegance and “mystery”, so as to entice the reader to really want to read your complete background in your resume. It is a way to peak interest about your true potential as a candidate.

The first thing to keep in mind is that a cover letter is really formal letter, not a note you are writing to a friend or relative. You should ensure that you adhere to formal correspondence guidelines.

With that in mind, a formal correspondence generally starts with a date, your contact details, followed after a couple of blank lines with the contact details of the person to whom you are sending the correspondence. Not too hard, right? This art of formal letter writing is really becoming a lost art because of email correspondence, etc. So, the cover letter could really set you apart from your competition.

An important cover letter tip is to make sure you address a real person. Don’t send a letter like “Dear Human Resources”. You can call the company to get a real name and just by doing this simple act would show that you have initiative which is always impressive.

Next, explain why you are writing. If you had a friend who introduced you to the company, mention their name as long as you’ve been given permission to do so. Give the reader an idea about how you discovered this opportunity. This first paragraph should be no more than 3 sentences long. In fact, in general, make sure that all your paragraphs are 3 to 4 sentences long, rather than an unending slew of words.

The next paragraph should describe what benefit you can be to the company. As in the resume writing tips, you should do some homework on the company and ideally on the job itself. This again will help you frame up your specific background as it relates directly to the job and company.

The next couple of paragraphs (brief mind you) should summarize your qualifications, not from a chronological perspective, but from a high level functional perspective. Describe how your specific background will be of great benefit to the company.

Finally, your closing paragraph is what is often called the “call to action”. You could state that you will be following up with a call to his or her office in a couple of days. I generally don’t like to wait for them to call me, which would be passive call to action.

And, then, simply put “Sincerely” or “Regards”, your name.

There you have a simple, yet very effective cover letter that says more about you than a resume alone could do.