Three Reasons Why Your Cover Letter is Not Worth the Paper It's Printed On Hudson FL

Contrary to what you might think, a cover letter is important. It is part of your career search materials. Are you telling me that when applying for a position, you are just going to send in your resume? The cover letter is your introduction. You wouldn’t go up to someone and just start talking without introducing yourself, would you? This is the same thing. You need a cover letter when applying for work. Now, I haven’t taken a poll or done any formal research regarding who reads cover letters and who doesn’t read them. When I was in a hiring position, I always read them. And, it worked out well; many times I identified and hired people that I wouldn’t have just considered from the resume. Many people provided information in the cover that they couldn’t include on the resume. So here are some things to consider regarding why your cover letter is not working for you:

Your cover duplicates what is on your resume: You already have a lot of valuable information on your resume. Why not tell the reader something different? Something that makes you unique? You can even exercise some creativity in your cover. Did you do something outside of the work environment that presents you as committed, motivated, and focused? Talk about it! What better place than a cover letter? Did you do something out of the ordinary? You can tie this to your professional life. This will entice the reader to keep going. Certainly you can reference something critical that you did for your company. You will need to be careful here though; you want to avoid repetition while conveying a meaningful message.

It’s boring and uninteresting and boring: Blah, blah, blah; blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda. Your cover letter needs a hook. It needs to embrace your reader and get someone excited to look at the resume. A bad cover letter can be used as a substitute for Ambien. A good cover letter? Well that will get you writing praise and definitely contribute to getting you the interview. Reveal your key attributes and provide a brief but compelling look at how you applied them in a work setting. Think about the results of your efforts – make sure to include examples.

The cover doesn’t demonstrate your unique value proposition: Your unique value proposition is the benefit your background will provide to the company. It describes who you are and what makes you unique. Make sure you draft a clear statement – how you can overcome challenges. Differentiate yourself from the competition. Know your strengths and convey them in your cover letter to help establish your unique value proposition.

If you are going to include a cover letter and you should better, make sure the tree did not die in vain – make your cover letter work for you and not against you. I find it interesting that many of my clients have a difficult time with their cover letters – if you find yourself in the same boat take a look at my blog on the anatomy of a well-written cover letter.

Debra Wheatman, CPRW, CPCC i...

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