Once you have your resume lined up and in perfect working order it is time to work on your cover letter. For many job seekers this is more nerve wracking and sweat inducing than creating any resume ever thought about being (not that resumes actually think but you get the picture). The truth is that there has been much less educational time devoted in the past to perfecting the cover letter. In days long ago it was perfectly acceptable to have a one-size-fits-all approach to cover letters. Those days are now long gone though and a new way of thinking is in order when it comes to creating a cover letter for your resume that truly shines among the other lumps of cover letter coal.

The problem today is that job seekers are facing more competition than ever before. Even more problematic is that workers are now more than ever being forced to compete on a global scale rather than a merely local scale. This means that the same jobs that may have had 10 or 20 applicants before are now receiving hundreds of resumes and cover letters on a daily or even weekly basis. For this reason alone you must learn to create a dynamite cover letter if you ever hope to have your resume read and make it to the interview portion of your job search experience.

There are a few things that you can do that will guarantee at the very least a second glance for your cover letter. First of all, make it short and sweet. There are far too many applicants who try to put their life stories in their cover letters. Quite frankly, hiring managers do not want to deal with too much information. Cover letters that are longer than a page are quite often fodder for the paper shredder and never make it past the initial once over.

Make your cover letter easy to read. Keep the paragraphs and sentences short with words that require no searching for the meanings. This does two things. First it makes your cover letter a little more likely to be read and second it makes you sound more natural than if you were filling your cover letter with ten-cent words. No one wants to need a dictionary handy in order to get through twenty or thirty cover letters during the course of a day.

Keep your cover letter positive and directed at what you have to offer the company for which you are seeking employment. Focus on the company and you are much more likely to appeal to the company. If you focus on your needs you are much less likely to be an appealing candidate for the position.

Present yourself in a personable light. Hiring managers are often choosing employees that will either work for or with them. Keep this in mind when creating your cover letter. You want to present yourself as someone that is fun and exciting to work with rather than a dry and humorless lump on a log that is not at all exciting to consider working with.

Be enthusiastic about the position and let them know you want the position and why you want the position. It’s amazing how many people get what they want over those who try to earn it simply because they asked for it. Try it, you just might find that asking is all it really takes to get the interview. You might also be surprised at how few prospective employees neglect to ask for the interview. This means that doing so puts you in the automatic minority and gives you a much greater opportunity to get that which you seek.

There are many ways you can make your cover letter shine. The very best is by being yourself and allowing your voice and personality to shine through in the writing of your resume. This gives the hiring manager a great deal of insight into who you are as a person and how well you will fit into their organization. In other words by being yourself you are more often than not making a great first impression that will lead to an even better opportunity to shine during the interview process.

Image taken on 2006-10-30 15:30:37. Image Source. (Used with permission)