As recruiters, we’re often asked ‘Why do I need to include a cover letter? Isn’t it just repeating what’s in my CV?’
The short answer is no, it isn’t — and a cover letter can be the difference between making it to an employer’s short list or falling into the background.
So how do you formulate the perfect cover letter? Here are 5 easy steps.
Step 1: Don’t copy your CV
CVs are supposed to sharp, snappy and provide an overall assessment of your career to date. Since a cover letter is essentially a ‘letter’ to your potential employers, you can expand on these bullet points and describe what exactly you were responsible for or skills that you’ve developed.
Your cover letter should be completely different to your CV.
As a general rule, you should avoid directly copying any detail from your CV onto your cover letter – they are different documents serving different purposes. Instead, use your cover letter as a blank canvas to tell your own story about how you’d fit into the company and how your skills can be valuable.
Step 2: Identify and answer the key selection criteria
Although you can customise your CV to match what an employer is looking for, the best place to convey how perfect you’d be for a role is in the cover letter. Take a look at the job description and identify those key details that employers want in a candidate – perhaps a particular skill, experience or qualification.
Identify those key details that employers want in a candidate – perhaps a particular skill, experience or qualification.
With this information, address your competency in this area and how this could be valuable to the business. By giving employers answers to their questions, they don’t have to search your entire CV for details that you should have put front and centre. This said, the flipside of this is not apologising for the skills that you don’t have — address gaps in your skills if asked, but accentuate the positive where possible.
Step 3: Consider customising your words
Are you someone who copies and pastes different details from one cover letter to another? This could be costing you a job. While it’s tempting to re-hash the same text over and over, a thoughtful and meaningful cover letter will help you to stand out from other candidates.
When there’s no personality, tone or impact, it’s easy to skim and not engage at all. If you want someone to see your passion and excitement for the role, write each cover letter from scratch, including those important attributes that will make employers want to reach out to you.
Step 4: Format, Format, Format
Above, we explained that a cover letter is an opportunity to craft a story. However, that story needs to be no more than one page long and be in a font that’s both readable and formal.
Design your cover letter with the right font!
Most employers will ask for an electronic cover letter, but that isn’t an excuse to be overly creative with the font. Select Calibri, Georgia, Helvetica, Arial or Times New Roman, for example – fonts that don’t take away from the content of your letter.
Step 5: Get someone to read it
A little typo might not be the end of the world, but you’d hate it to be the difference between being top candidate and second choice. Once you’ve polished your cover letter, send it off to a friend to check it for spelling and grammar.
Another set of eyes might also help identify how it reads and whether they’d want to hire you based on your cover letter.
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