Millennial Career Guide #3: Covering the Basics in Your Cover Letter
The third installment of the Millennial Career Post series designed to help you take the next step in your career.
Cover letters. The dreaded what-do-I-write and where-do-I-begin saga that every job applicant has to face at some point in their career. I remember applying to my first jobs in college and feeling dumbfounded at what I was supposed to say in a cover letter. More than 12 years later, I almost consider myself an expert.
The truth is that every career, every job and every situation is different. For many of my art friends, their portfolios ARE their cover letters. For my business friends, well-crafted stories about ROI and improving efficiencies in the office have yielded them their dream jobs. And for communications? Well, you guessed it — it depends on what kind of communications job you’re applying for.
This post is designed to help you take the guess work out of writing a cover letter for virtually any job. It’s my most basic formula for making sure that I cover all the important parts that an employer wants to know about me and that aren’t obvious in my resume.
So, what are the essential parts of a cover letter? There are three. Below, they’re broken down into paragraphs, that when put together gives you a dynamic and convincing cover letter.
The first, a summary paragraph introducing yourself to the employer. This isn’t the place to talk about your puppies or love of board games, but rather, your current work, interesting skills or any recent accomplishments. It’s also a quick summary of your previous work, and a place to explain gaps in your resume.
Who Are YOU: Remember, there’s a human on the other end reading this letter, so give them a quick look into who you are and the experiences you’ve had that make you competitive for this role. If you have gaps in your resume, there are some easy ways to address them. One example, “…between my last two roles, I took three months off to learn coding and travel to Mexico where I volunteered for two weeks.” Highlight what you learned during the gaps or what you did that adds to your skill portfolio.
The second, a paragraph about results and big accomplishments that you want to highlight that might not be obvious from your resume. Not everything fits on your resume, nor should it. Consider your cover letter as a supplement — it tells the broader story of your career, accomplishments and future goals.
Use DATA: This is a great opportunity to highlight the increase in conversions, percentage of follower growth, or examples of efficiencies that improved business profits. The more hard data, the easier to help the reviewer draw the conclusion you’re trying to lead them to. An example, “I increased followers to our main social media account by 25% when I ran our first paid customer acquisition ad campaign but a budget of $500. Our ROI for the campaign exceeded 300%.”
The third, what you anticipate being able to add to the team, experiences you can use to elevate the work and why adding you to the team is the right choice. Hiring managers are always looking for what candidates can do for them and their teams. Highlight makes you a unique candidate for the position.
Share Your VALUE: Now that you’ve introduced yourself to the hiring manager and told them why you’re a competitive candidate with a history of great career successes, give them the final piece. Why are you the right fit for this job. If they hired you to the team, what would you add that no one else would be able to. For example, are you an exceptional project manager that helps their team keep their center in the midst of project chaos? Are you passionate about creating team efficiencies and building systems that ultimately makes everyone’s jobs easier?
Now that you’ve outlined the three most important paragraphs in your cover letter, you’re ready to polish it up a bit and send it off.
REMEMBER:
· Always make sure you address your cover letter to a person. This might require some digging to identify the hiring manager, the HR professional or even the head of the team. And PLEASE, spell their name correctly.
· Always include your contact information, including address, email and phone number.
· Include a quick note at the bottom that lets them know what attachments to expect.
· Keep the letter to one page.
· Sign-off with a formal greeting, like Regards, Best or Sincerely.
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