Other articles: Putting a Spin on Work Experience Claims & Credibility -- The Essence of Selling
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For many people, cover letters are an annoyance they'd be quite
happy to avoid. People frequently ask me "Do I have to send a cover
But I can't tell them -- or you -- that.
Perhaps the reason this question is so common is because so many
cover letters are indeed a waste of paper. It's perfectly reasonable to
wonder if you have to include a letter when you're going to say little
more than "here's my resume; hope to hear from you soon."
Even the term "cover letter" suggests a mere formality -- just a cover for
the real material you're sending.
But you can do much better than that. A cover letter is an
opportunity to tap into an individual employer's aspirations and
anxieties. Your resume is about you, but employers don't really care
about you. They care about what you can do for them -- the problems
you can help them solve and the opportunities you can help them
take advantage of.
The cover letter is your opportunity to go beyond the resume and its
focus on the past and other employers and talk about what the
reader cares most about -- themselves. It is a sales letter, and all
good sales letters are written with the reader's interests foremost in
mind.
If you're mailing your resume to an employer, you should always
include a cover letter. Always.
Customizing requires thinking about the company, their customers,
and the work you see yourself doing. It means imagining yourself in
the position and the situations you'd be facing, and figuring out the
abilities and traits you possess that are important for success.
For any position, there are two types of skills: core skills that any
serious applicant will be expected to have, and a much broader range
of skills that would be useful to the employer but go beyond the
basic requirements. You have to spend some time thinking about
both types. Having the first kind gets you in the game; the second
will make you stand out from the competition.
Your letter should be as close to a business proposal as you can get
-- not a plea for an interview. What do you offer that's of value?
What objectives can you help them achieve? Try to focus on their
needs -- what they want to buy rather than what you'd like to sell.
Read More About Writing a Persuasive Cover Letter:
The problem with all guides to resumes and cover letters is that they may make you believe there are absolute rules which must be followed.... Read it here
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