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Perfection to the Letter - The Perfect CV Covering Letter
Jobseekers
are inundated with CV advice, but how do you create winning CV covering
letters that boost your application and help secure an interview?
Jobsite finds out.
There are hundreds of books and websites dedicated to CV advice, but very few offer more than a couple of paragraphs about writing exceptional CV covering letters. So how do you create a letter that stands out from the pile and helps win the all-important job interview?
According to recruiters
offering CV advice, covering letters are still a key part of any
employee’s application, and should not be left out even as we enter an
increasingly informal age where many jobs are applied for by email.
Suzanne Cameron, Senior Commercial Consultant of Carlton Resource
Solutions says “just because many online application systems don’t
require a covering letter, there is a growing tendency among applicants
not to send a covering letters with hard copy submissions. As a result
however, these candidates are damaging their chances of securing the
positions that they really want. A CV covering letter is the first
chance you have to impress – make sure that you take it.”
Not only are covering letters
considered essential by many employers, even if their job adverts don’t
explicitly request one, they are also your chance to demonstrate your
professionalism, ability to think originally and write succinctly.
Unless the job advert specifically gives advice not to send a covering
letter, you should include one no matter what format you send your
application: post, online or fax. Recruitment expert and author, John
Lees, who has interviewed thousands of employers and frequently gives
CV advice, discovered many were dismayed by the number of online
applications they received without CV covering letters.
However, a weak covering
letter may hinder an application, so what are the key ingredients for
success? “A perfect CV covering letter should contain a heading and a
first sentence that demonstrates to the employer that you have the
skills and experience to do the advertised role,” says Paul de Zulueta,
partner at MaST International. “Avoid the use of clichés which
are overused and sound insincere such as, ‘my last job empowered me…’.
Equally, avoid exaggeration – you will need to support your claims at
interview. Keep your CV covering letter to one side of A4 paper and
make it easy for the reader to get in touch with you by providing clear
contact details. Make sure you tell the employer what qualifies you for
the job advertised and give concrete evidence. For example, ‘I
increased sales by 14%’, rather than unsubstantiated value judgements
such as, ‘I am a self-motivated sales executive’.” This is good CV
advice too: always back up your claims with evidence.
UK employers who offer
covering letter advice tell us they like a professional approach – even
those who recruit for creative industries. This means a single A4
covering letter on white paper, with the candidate’s address in the top
right-hand corner, the date written out in full beneath that address
with a line-space in between and the employer’s company and address
written below this – set to the left. Don’t use coloured paper or lots
of different fonts, both of which have been cited by employers as being
immediately off-putting.
Find out as much in advance
about the company and your recruiter, and tailor your CV covering
letter to their preferences. “The ideal starting point for writing a CV
covering letter is to make sure you understand what your potential
employer is looking for and tailor your response accordingly,” says
Zulueta. Make sure your covering letter refers to the job in question,
industry and company you’ll be working for, and explains why you’re
suited to all three.
It sounds obvious, but it’s
also vital to address your CV covering letter to the right person.
Writing ‘Dear Sir/Madam’ shows you haven’t bothered to find out who
you’re writing to. If the job advert doesn’t state who this is, ring
the company and find out. Also, a common CV covering letter error is
for applicants to write the wrong name for the recruiter, as they’ve
applied en-masse to several different job adverts and left the name of
a previous recruiter on the document. “Every time we put a job advert
in the trade press, I can guarantee that at least one applicant, and
maybe two or three, will get my name wrong on their covering letter,”
says James Tann, MD of computer programming company, Codesortium – who
often gives candidates CV advice and feedback. “If I check the
newspaper, more often than not there’ll be an advert for a similar
position that we’re offering printed next to mine and asking applicants
to address letters to John someone. And inevitably, someone’s CV
covering letter will address me: ‘Dear John…’ Either that, or they’ll
misspell my surname. When you’ve got a pile of CVs to get through, it’s
enough of a reason to throw an application straight into the bin.”
Broadly speaking, a CV
covering letter that wins interviews is one that’s had enough time
spent on it to do it right. Employers like it when they feel you’ve
taken time to write an original letter just for them. ‘Identikit’
applications that have clearly been pitched to a number of different
organisations are among the things recruiters have told us they loathe
the most.
Spending enough time on your
covering letter also means thorough error checking. You should be
spending at least half an hour, to an hour compiling, a good covering
letter, with another ten or twenty minutes error checking. The latter
is particularly important, as recruiters have told us even the smallest
error makes an entire application immediately unappealing.
However, taking time doesn’t
mean writing reams of text. It’s about quality, not quantity. Employers
tell us time and time again that applicants should keep covering
letters as short as possible – ideally two or three paragraphs. Not
only will it please an employer who has to sift through piles of
lengthier covering letters, it will also demonstrate your ability to
prioritise and write succinctly. ‘I received a covering letter from a
young lady who told us she was able to ‘prioritise her workload’,’ one
recruiter told us, ‘and yet her letter ran over two pages. Not only did
this tell us she couldn’t prioritise, it also told us she couldn’t
grasp the concept of irony.’
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