In order to be as accurate as possible, I went out and spoke to recruiters from Google, Microsoft, and a few Wall Street firms on top of my own research. If we want our cover letter to be as effective as possible we need to make sure we avoid the mistakes that employers hate to see, yet most people still make. The 7 Cover Letter Mistakes That Cost People Jobs My hope is that this guide will give you a framework that enables you to efficiently craft cover letters that are more likely to get you hired. If you follow the networking and value-add strategies in my other articles, those strategies are going to be far more effective at breaking ties than an 8.5 x 11″ sheet of paper. We need to craft a good cover letter to help boost our chances, but we don't want to spend several hours doing so because there are far better ways to spend our time to get results during the job search. However, over half of employers noted that they prefer candidates who submit a cover letter: 74% of recruiters don't even read cover letters. The truth is, in the mind of a recruiter/hiring manager, your cover letter is a tie breaker that is only read after the rest of your application has been reviewed. When I asked my audience to choose between a guide on cover letters, resumes or LinkedIn profiles, cover letters won out by a significant margin. People seem to think that they are the missing link that will suddenly skyrocket the response rates of potential employers. It lets you create a recruiter-approved, ATS-friendly cover letter in minutes: The Truth About Cover Letters (Does Anyone Read Them?)īefore we dive into the actionable stuff, I want to provide some context on where cover letters fit in the hiring process.Ĭover letters are a strange animal. If you're not getting the results you want from your cover letter, check out my free cover letter builder. Over the course of this post, I'm going to lay out the cover letter strategies that thousands of my clients have used to land jobs across industries and at companies like Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Deloitte, ESPN, American Express, and more. I'm hoping to change things with this article. But what works for one person in one industry or role might not work for a similar person in a different situation. When they do give specific advice, it's usually tailored to a niche – software development, tech sales, finance, etc. It doesn't get too specific because many career coaches (even recruiters) have never been through the application process at a world class company. Here's the thing – most career “experts” out there give vague advice that they've seen work in their corner of the market. While all of this advice is technically correct, did you feel your confidence skyrocket when you went back to type out that first sentence? Be sure to include positive traits like “Focused,” “Hard Working,” and “Results Oriented”.Standard margins are 1” on the top, bottom, and left and right sides of the page. A font size of 10 or 12 points is easy to read. Basic fonts like Arial, Calibri, Georgia, Verdana, and Times New Roman work well.Arrange the points in a logical sequence organize each paragraph around a main point.Then try to match them in the letter in a way that will appeal to the employer's self-interest. Assess the employer's needs and your skills.I did a quick Google search for “How To Write A Cover Letter,” and here are a few things that the “experts” recommend: Writing A Cover Letter That Actually Gets You Hired Cover Letter Templates & Real Examples From Microsoft, Google, & More.Nailing Your Cover Letter Format: Aesthetics, Structure, Style, & File Type.The Anatomy of a Highly Effective Cover Letter.The 7 Cover Letter Mistakes That Cost People Jobs. How To Write A Cover Letter That Actually Gets Results.It doesn't help that most of the advice out there on the subject is vague at best.Īnd that's exactly why I wrote this post! My hope is that this guide will be the last (and only) cover letter article you'll ever need to read. Most of us don't consider ourselves to be the next Walter Isaacson, and the task of crafting the perfect story sits well outside of our comfort zone. When you're applying to jobs, the employer lays out the fields you need to complete right there in the application.īut when you're writing a cover letter, you probably find yourself staring at a blank Word document wishing the right words would will themselves onto the page. If you need to update your resume, you download a template and fill in the blanks. The reason writing them is so difficult is because we don't have a defined framework to follow. Writing a cover letter can be one of the most stress inducing aspects of the job search.
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