Professional Cover Letter Help

All components of your job search, from your cover letter to your resume to your follow up correspondence are all interrelated. Even the elements that you may not realize are part of the big picture such as your job search strategy, your network of contacts, and even your responses in interviews. These all help to create a picture of you that others can use to understand what sort of candidate you are and more importantly if you are the right one for the job. As the cover letter is one of the most important components of the job search process, you need to take resume cover letter writing very seriously. If you think about it, this is the first impression you get to make on the hiring manager, and therefore it better be a good one if you want to move further in the process.
 
Professional cover letters are not just used as a cover page for your resume anymore, but rather they are an initial indication of why you are contacting the person that’s reading it. Cover letters offer you a golden opportunity to link your unique skills, individual experience, and overall talents and interests with a particular job opportunity or organization. This is it, the very first thing that a potential hiring manager will read about you, so you have to ensure that you make your resume cover letter writing really count. This letter serves as a formal introduction to the people who can be extremely influential in your job search. Professional cover letters give the readers a snapshot of you and prepare them with all of the details and highlights of your resume. As you can see, this is an extremely important document, and one for which you must put some serious time and thought into writing—that is if you want to move on in the process.

For the best effects and a surefire way to move on in the process, use these seven steps to make your resume cover letter writing easy and effective.

Step1: Presentation with an effective format

You can use whichever tool works best for you to begin your resume cover letter to properly display all of your contact information at the top of the page. Just be sure that for the most professional cover letters possible, you are consistent with the font and style choices that you use throughout your resume. This shows a great attention to detail, and provides an automatic favorable first impression. Be sure to consider the format which you are sending the letter, for example an email cover letter will require a slightly different format than a mailed cover letter.

Step2: Focus on the first paragraph to create a strong hook

The first paragraph of your professional cover letters should let your reader know why are writing, that is what the actual purpose is. It’s important to try and make your opening sentence interesting enough to draw in the reader and intrigue them to read the remainder of the letter. Remember what we discussed in “The Hook” article—this is the first and most important point that you make so you really need to make it jump off the page and pull in the reader. For the purposes of effective cover letter writing, here is a sample of a strong hook:

While acting as a purchasing manager, I restructured the entire purchasing process and reduced the operational costs at a rate of 15%. As this was a major part of my career as a purchasing manager, I would like to speak with you about how I can contribute to your organization and deliver the same results.

— to be continued