What does a good cover letter look like?

Note: Do not steal this letter. Several hiring managers have emailed me when they spotted candidates using parts of it as their own — and yes, those candidates were rejected. This letter is here for inspiration, not copying.

 

The Evil HR Lady, who I secretly worship, has shamed me into posting an example of a good cover letter.

But first, let’s take a look at what I consider an example of how not to do a cover letter. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this letter — other than being an utterly wasted opportunity, and I’ll explain why:

Dear Human Resources:

Enclosed please find my resume for the position of staff writer.

I currently work as a copy editor for Acme Company, where I am responsible for editing brochures, fact sheets, and Web content. Before that, I spent a year interning at Tiger Beat magazine, where I had the opportunity to write several articles for publication. I also majored in English in college, with a concentration in writing.

I am seeking a position that that will utilize my writing skills with opportunity for growth.

I hope to hear from you to schedule an interview.

Sincerely,

Jane Doe

This letter doesn’t add anything to the application — it just summarizes information already available from the resume. That’s just a waste of space, and space is already really limited! Plus, I hate this: “I am seeking a position that that will utilize my writing skills with opportunity for growth.” Don’t tell the employer what you want (and especially in such generic terms) — tell them why they should want you. And be specific.

Plus, it might as well be a form letter, because nothing about it is specific to the job being offered or the company offering it. It’s sort of the equivalent of a fax cover sheet.

Here’s an example of a cover letter that would grab me:

Dear Ms. Smith:

I hope you will consider me for the position of staff writer, as advertised in The Washington Post.

I was particularly excited to see a position open at the Sierra Club, as I have long been a fan of your work. I’m impressed by the way you make environmental issues accessible to non-environmentalists (particularly in the pages of Sierra Magazine, which has sucked me in more times than I can count), and I would love the opportunity to be part of your work.

Reading over the job description for the position, I recognized myself. As you will see on my attached resume, I have more than seven years’ experience in non-profits, writing everything from newsletters to Web sites to brochures to letters to the editor and op-eds. In addition to in-house publications, my work has been published in newspapers around the country.

Additionally, I am a fast, versatile writer, and I specialize in taking complicated information and presenting it in an easy-to-understand, upbeat format. I’ve never missed a deadline (in a recent performance review, my manager called me “the fastest writer on the planet”) and pride myself on being able to juggle many different projects. My copy-editing skills border on the obsessive-compulsive; I have been known to correct mistakes on restaurant menus!

I think my skills and experience are an excellent match with what you are seeking, and I am excited about the chance to work with you.

If you would like to talk with me or schedule an interview, please call me at 555-555-1212. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Jane Doe

This letter does the following:

– It shows personal interest in working for this particular organization, and it’s specific about why, which makes it both more believable and more compelling. It’s human nature — people respond when they feel a personal interest from you. Works in dating, works in job-hunting.

– It only briefly touches on the writer’s work experience, giving just the upshot and leaving the details for the resume.

– Perhaps most importantly, it provides information about the writer that will never be available from a resume — personal traits and work habits, and even a reference to feedback from a previous manager.

– It’s far more interesting to read than the first cover letter. I want to call this person in for an interview, and I don’t even have a staff writer position open (nor do I work for the Sierra Club, for that matter).

Now, can you do this for every position you apply for? Yes. It’s sometimes easier for non-profits, because you can talk about why you support their mission (so I admittedly took the easy way out in my example). But you can do it for regular companies too, with a little bit of research. No time for that when you’re applying to 30 different jobs? Narrow it down and focus on fewer, take the time to write a truly compelling cover letter tailored to each specific job and company, and it’s likely you’ll find that five truly personalized, well-tailored applications will yield you better results than 30 generic applications.

Take my word for it: Your competition is sending in cover letters like example #1 (if they even bother with them at all). You will dramatically rise above the pack if you put in the time they’re not.

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9 ways to ruin an interview

1. Pretend you have no weaknesses. Or tell me that your biggest weakness is perfectionism and you work too hard. You might as well wear a sign saying, “I’m bullshitting you.” Candidates who can’t or won’t come up with a realistic assessment of areas where they could improve make me think they’re lacking in insight and self-awareness — or, at a minimum, just making it impossible to have a real discussion of their potential fitness for the job. I want to know about your weaknesses not because I’m trying to trip you up, but because I genuinely care about making sure you’re a good fit for the job. I don’t want to put you in a job you’ll struggle in, and I definitely don’t want to have to fire you a few months from now. Isn’t it better to lose the job offer now than the job itself later?

2. Share too much personal info. I once had a candidate tell me way too much about the sex column she wrote for her campus newspaper. If I had been talking to her at a party, I would have been fascinated, but it was inappropriate for a job interview.

3. Answer your cell phone. If you forget to turn it off and it rings, apologize profusely and look mortified. Looking mortified will make me feel sympathy for you.

4. Ask questions about the company that could have easily been answered with a modicum of research. I’ve had candidates say, “So what exactly does the organization do?”

5. Badmouth an old boss. I’ll assume that’ll be me you’re talking about some day.

6. Be as quiet as possible. It shouldn’t be like pulling teeth for me to get information out of you. If you’re shy, I empathize, but you’ve got to help me get a sense of who you are.

7. Don’t ask any questions. I want to know that you’re interested in the details of the job, the department you’ll be working in, your prospective supervisor’s management style, and the culture of the organization. Otherwise, you’re signaling that you’re either not that interested or just haven’t thought very much about it.

8. Interrupt. It’s the kiss of death in my office.

9. Don’t think beyond your desire to get a job offer. Too many candidates approach the interview as if the only goal is to win a job offer. But the wiser goal is to see if you’re a mutual match, emphasis on mutual. Think of it like dating: If you approached every date determined to make your date fall for you, you’d lose sight of whether or not you were right for each other. Don’t trick yourself into believing that the job offer is an end unto itself — focus on what comes after it.

Job-searching when hard of hearing

A reader writes:

I found your article valuable and informative. I’m hard-of-hearing. I hear well with a hearing aid, however, I have difficulty hearing on the phone. I realize that selling yourself to potential employers on the phone is essential to job hunting. I’m intelligent, resourceful, and learn new materials quickly. How do I get around this situation in a cover letter?

I may not be the best person to answer this because, personally, I don’t want job applicants to contact me by phone anyway; I much prefer email, as it allows me to respond when it’s convenient, rather than having to stop whatever I’m doing to take a call. However, after an applicant’s cover letter and resume draws me in, I do usually want to set up a phone interview as a precursor to a longer in-person interview. But if an applicant explained what you explained above, I would be happy to do would what normally be a phone interview in person instead. I would just need you to let me know it was necessary.

So I’d advise simply being straightforward about it toward the end of your cover letter, by including a brief blurb saying something like, “Since I know the next step may be a phone interview, I should mention that I’m hard-of-hearing. I hear well with a hearing aid, but I have difficulty hearing on the phone. This is pretty easy to get around by using free instant relay phone services or simply talking in person, and I’ve never found it to be much of an obstacle.”

This should then be a non-issue; if your resume and cover letter indicated you were a promising candidate, we’d just talk in person next. (If you were a long distance candidate, I’d suggest using an instant relay service instead until we were ready for the formal interview.)

But of course, I don’t speak for all hiring managers, so I would also recommend asking organizations like the National Association for the Deaf if there are other things they recommend to people in this situation. I’d also be interested in thoughts from others in the comments section, as I’m sure there are other good ways to handle this as well.

What to do if you think you’re going to get fired

If you suspect you’re in danger of being fired, you don’t just need to sit back and worry and wait for it to happen. If you’re proactive about addressing it, you have a pretty good chance of making the situation better for yourself. I’m not saying you can magically keep your job, but you might be able to turn a pretty unpleasant situation into something much more manageable.

Start by asking your manager to talk honestly with you. Tell him or her that you know you’re not excelling in the position — or if that’s not strictly accurate, that you know he or she isn’t happy with your performance — and ask what you could do to improve. Then — and this is key — ask for his or her honest assessment of whether you’re likely to be able to make the improvements needed to succeed in the job in the long run.

Maybe you’ll get helpful information that you can use to turn things around — but if instead you get a bleak assessment of your future in that job, this is where there’s a hidden opportunity most people don’t use.

Say something like, “I appreciate you being candid with me. I wonder if we can make arrangements now to plan for a transition that will be as smooth as possible for both of us. I’m going to go on trying to do a good job, but knowing that you don’t believe a positive outcome is likely, it sounds like I should also start looking for a new position. If that’s the case, would you be willing to work with me while I conduct a job search? That obviously will help me, and it will give you time to search for a replacement and have a smooth transition, and I can be as involved as you’d like in bringing the new person up to speed.”

Many managers are likely to hear this with relief. No one wants to fire an employee if it can be avoided, both for legal reasons and because, for most people, it can be emotionally draining. By making it easy for your employer to end the relationship and offering terms that help you both, you’re maximizing the chance that they’ll work with you in the way you’ve proposed. You get some grace time to find a new job, you don’t have to explain a termination in future job searches, and you gain more control over the situation than you’d otherwise have.

Disclaimer: There’s no guarantee your employer will take you up on this. You know your company culture and your manager best, and you should take those into account before proceeding this way. In some situations, some (not all) companies might respond with, “It sounds like you’re resigning, and we’ll accept that.” So proceed with caution, and let your knowledge of your employer be your guide.

5 questions job-seekers should ask interviewers

If you’re searching for a new job, here are five questions you should ask any company you’re considering working for:

1. “As hard as it is, I think it’s important for managers to transition people out if they’re not the right fit. When is the last time the company fired someone for performance-related reasons?
I’ve never heard a candidate ask this and I bet I never will, but they should. How many times have you had your quality of life destroyed or your effectiveness diminished by someone who the company obviously should have fired but who instead was allowed to languish on? Just as you want to work for a company that will reward great performance, you also want to work for a company that will get rid of people if they deserve to be fired.

2. “What’s the biggest obstacle the person in this position will face?

3. “How will the success of the person in this position be measured?

4. “Thinking to the person who you’ve seen do this job best, what made their performance so outstanding?

5. “How would you describe the culture of the organization?

The “right” answers to questions 2-5 depend on what you’re looking for in your job search, but you’ll definitely learn information you might not otherwise glean about what you’d be signing up for if you took the job. Plus, if your interviewer is competent, he or she will be thrilled that you’re asking, because you’ll be showing a level of thoughtfulness and engagement that many candidates don’t display.

the point of a cover letter

I regularly see job applicants miss out on one of the most effective ways to make their application stand out: the cover letter.

First, I’m continually surprised by how many people don’t submit a cover letter at all, despite the fact that our ads and online job application instructions explicitly request them. I generally assume these applicants are just resume-bombing, applying to such a wide range of jobs that they can’t possibly tailor their application to each job. I don’t want these applicants; not only are they ignoring instructions in their very first contact with me, but I want applicants who are interested in this job, not a job.

Then there are the people who do submit a cover letter but who use it simply to summarize the resume that follows. With such limited initial contact, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you squander a page just regurgitating the contents of the other pages.

A cover letter is where you make a compelling case for yourself as a candidate, totally aside from what’s in your resume. The first thing you want to do is tailor it to the specific job you’re applying for and, if possible, the specific company. Yes, it takes a lot longer than sending out the same form letter over and over, but I can promise you, a well-written cover letter that’s obviously individualized to my specific opening is going to open doors even when your resume alone might not have. These account for such a tiny fraction of applications — maybe 3% at most — that you’ll stand out and immediately go to the top of my pile. And I’ll give you an extra look, even if your resume isn’t stellar.

So what does it mean to individualize the cover letter? Here are some ways to do it:

* Tell me why you want this particular job. What grabbed you about the job description or the company itself? Why would you prefer this job over others out there?

* If you’re not a perfect match with the qualifications listed in the ad, acknowledge it and tell me why you’d do a good job anyway.

* Stay away from hyperbole. I hate cover letter statements like, “You won’t find a candidate better qualified than me.” It’s usually not true when people say that, but more importantly, it reeks of ego. I don’t want to feel like you’re trying to sell me on you; from my side, the hiring process is about an honest assessment of whether you’re a good match (because I don’t want to have to fire you later). Hyperbole just gets in the way.

* If something makes you especially well-suited for the job aside from your resume, the cover letter is the place to mention it. Maybe the position requires an inordinate degree of meticulousness and you constantly get teased for being anal retentive about details. Great! Mention it or I won’t know.

* If you know you’re overqualified but you don’t mind, say so in your cover letter. Otherwise I’ll figure that you don’t understand the nature of the position and won’t want to waste my time or yours.

if you’re job-searching, check your spam folder

If you’re conducting a job search, be vigilant about checking your spam folder or bulk email folder if your mail program has one, because there might be a job-related email sitting in there. At my organization, we’ve discovered that our emails sometimes get mistakenly routed to applicants’ spam folders and so some people don’t even see them. This is a particular problem when we’re emailing job applicants back to ask them to supply further documentation (such as a writing sample); when I’m particularly interested in a candidate, I’ll sometimes have our hiring assistant follow up with a phone call if I don’t hear back for a while, and often she discovers when she calls that the email is indeed sitting in a spam folder, unseen. But most companies won’t bother to do this; I do it because I hate the thought of missing out on someone good, but most places aren’t as anal retentive as I am.

Introduction

I manage a medium-sized, successful organization. I hire, fire, promote, manage, all that. If you’re not sure what the hell your manager is thinking, or how to ask for a raise, or whether you might be in danger of getting fired, or how to act in a second interview … ask away. I can’t promise I think just like your manager does — in fact, chances are good that I don’t, since I think many managers out there aren’t that good at it — but I can tell you how to give it your best shot.