After the financial crunch of 2009-10, the global job market is exuberantly volatile. With scores going unemployed, you only have limited number of shots! And to break the ice for a great job, you need a great cover letter!
The primary goal of a cover letter is to motivate the person who receives it to read your resume and then ask you for an interview. You also may want to elaborate on examples from Resume, mention any personal contacts, or show an interest in a particular aspect of the company you are writing to. Whenever you are writing a cover letter, it is in your best interest to keep some generic guidelines in mind.
1. Letters to people to whom you have been referred are much more potent than those sent out to someone with whom you don’t have any connection at all.
2. Cover letters sent to a specific person are better than those sent blindly to a title such as “Human Resource Manager”.
3. Cover letters are never general! You need to type or write each letter individually. Like every organization is different, they also look for a different skill set and approach.
4. The best practice, while writing a cover letter, is to remain crisp, to the point and respectable.
5. In case you have dropped a cover letter in a company for a position that asked for dropping a special cover letter with resume, then it is your right to follow up. In case you have already mentioned in your cover letter that you will call on a so and so date, then make sure you do that. Don’t just sit there dreading for a No! Act now is the approach to go for!
Cover letter is always your first impression on the client. In general communication terms, it is termed as a door opener. Making a positive impact with your Cover letter is the main crux of actually writing one!
The job search can be a very invigorating communication experience for some of us. It is not necessary that you will write a great cover letter and still hop on the job you applied for! But a great cover letter packaged with a smart resume will always keep you in the mind of your potential employer. Although this isn’t related directly to topic here, but Follow Ups are important. The reason for extra emphasizing this “follow up” term is to convince you that you have a right to know answers!
