BUS/GINT-Cover Letter Models & Tips

The following information is used for educational purposes only.





Dear (Mr./Ms.)--------,

I´m writing to tell you about myself.

I’m a ---------- looking for a job. When I was a teenager, I thought I wanted to be a ------------, but I didn’t have the grades or the drive to get into ----------. I’ve spent the past -------- years trying to be a --------, which has led me to ----------------.

All this stacked up to almost a -------- of internships, freelance work, and stopgap jobs that a one-page resume can’t contain. Like so many other people in their early twenties, I’m faced with a changing world — one in which I don’t / seem to --------------.

Here is what I can do: I’m a ------------and, once I get started, a -----------. I can ------, but I also know how to ----------. I spent ----------- years of my education learning how to -------------------. I know how to interact with lots of different groups of people — when you spend a long time ---------, you tend to pick up this trait. I’m collected and calm in stressful situations, including defending a thesis, handling a difficult customer, and flying standby. You can teach me to do almost anything.

 --------------taught me how to weed out what’s not important, and I’m a relentless ----------------, which is the same as the ability to admit when I’m wrong.

If there’s a place for someone like me at your company, I’d like to hear from you.

Best regards,
(Name)







         8 New Rules For Writing The Perfect Cover Letter

The modern cover letter should focus first and foremost on the company it's directed to, career experts say. Today, you need to demonstrate a genuine interest in the company and prove you know how to help it.That's easier said than done, especially when you're trying to distinguish yourself among dozens or hundreds of other applicants. Below, career experts weigh in on the new essential guidelines to writing a successful cover letter.

1. Keep your letter short enough for someone to read in 10 seconds.

Three paragraphs is the ideal length. Use the first paragraph as an intro, the second for the meat, and the third to wrap up. The hiring manager giving a first read to your letter is probably going to spend 10 seconds or less on it. They want to read something succinct.

2. Hook your reader's interest in the first sentence.

Try a professional but bold statement that catches the reader's,such as: "Looking for a dynamic marketing guru? Look no further. Here I am."

3. Pick two or three skills from the job description and show you have them.

Read the job description carefully and identify the top two or three qualities the company wants in a candidate. Then use your cover letter to demonstrate you have those skills, giving examples of when and how you've used them in the past. Show that you're equipped to make a difference from day one.

4. Use numbers and statistics to back up your claims.

It's good to say you're experienced with social media. But it's much, much better to say you led a successful social media campaign that generated 3.2 million followers and increased revenue by 3%. The goal is to present yourself as a proven results-getter and show that you can replicate your past successes at a new company.


5. Don't just rehash your résumé in paragraph form.

The cover letter is designed to showcase your interest in the company and your best attributes for the position. That doesn't mean it needs an itemized list of your every job and achievement. To be sure, if you won an exceptional award or executed a stunning project, then make sure to highlight it in the letter. You should also discuss previous work that relates specifically to skills and experiences the hiring manager is looking for. But as a general rule of thumb, if it doesn't jump off the page, leave it out.

6. Address your cover letter directly to the hiring manager or recruiter.

Today it generally takes as little as a Google search or a phone call to figure out the name of the hiring manager. Addressing your letter to the correct person (and spelling their name correctly!) will automatically ingratiate you to the reader and show that you've spent some time researching the company and position.

7. Customize your tone for the company culture.

You might be applying to a Fortune 500 company, a startup, or something in the middle. No two companies are alike, not just in mission but also in culture. An important part of tailoring your cover letter to the company is striking the right tone. If you know the place you're applying to has a casual vibe, then your letter can reflect that with pithy sentences and fun anecdotes that show an easygoing side of your personality. On the other hand, if the company seems to have a formal culture, it's probably best to use traditional phrases like "Dear Mr./Ms." and straightforward prose.

8. Proofread carefully, and consider getting a second pair of eyes.

How you absolutely don't want to be remembered is as the person that submitted the sloppy cover letter. So proof, proof, and proof again, or enlist a friend to look at your document with a fresh set of eyes. A typo, grammar mistake, misspelling, or other error can "leap off the page in a bad way," and is the easiest way to let a hiring manager knock your application straight from their desk to the trash bin. Don't give them the chance.














             10 great cover letter tips for millennials

1-Keep a consistent format.

The header, fonts, and style of your cover letter should match your resume. If you have the opportunity to upload your cover letter in a file, copy the header format from your resume into your cover letter. It shows continuity and attention to detail. Plus, it’s easier for a recruiter to know that both documents fit together.

2-Grab the reader’s attention.

Say something provocative or contradictory, bring the reader right into a moment that describes who you really are, or do something to make the recruiter want to keep on reading. This makes the recruiter want to read on to find out why you said this and how it relates to him/them. Then you have the recruiter hooked.

3-Highlight your resume.

Think of your cover letter as a more in-depth follow-up on relevant aspects of your resume. A description of a specifically relevant work experience or accomplishment often gets lost in all the other elements of your resume. If you have done something that you think sets you apart from other candidates, share more about it here. Go in depth and share more than your resume allows you to.

4-Tell a story.

Along those same lines, it is best to highlight your experiences by telling a story. We all have heard the old saying, “Show, don’t tell.” Well, this is particularly true with your cover letter. If you say, “I am great with clients and always hit my quota” that won’t resonate with a recruiter like ending a story by saying, “and that is why I always received 100 percent positive feedback in client surveys and was first in my region in sales each month.”

5-Do your homework.

Read the job description in detail to learn what they are looking for, so you can tailor your cover letter to show how you have these skills and experiences. Talk to someone who works at the company or in the group you want to work for. They can tell you more about what the job and hiring manager are like (so you can decide whether you really want to work there) and so you can write the cover letter highlighting how you would fit well with the organization’s culture. Don’t just spew out facts to sound smart; show you did your homework in more nuanced ways.

6-Customize.

Just like you want to customize your resume to fit the type of job or company, you should do this to an even greater extent with your cover letter. By doing your homework, you will have plenty of ammo to use in making your cover letter fit for the specific company and job you are interested in. Not every job wants the same traits or experiences. You should highlight the best traits and experiences for that specific job.

7-Cautiously name drop.

If you know someone at the company and talked to them about the job, or have some specific connection to the company, then mention it. Your cover letter is a way to supplement your resume with more info in a different format. If the recruiter has a conversation with someone who really knows you and can vouch for you, it will help your chances a great deal. Or, it could kill your chances at getting the job if they don’t have something good to say about you, so make sure you have an advocate before mentioning them.

8-Use bullet points.

Recruiters are extremely busy and are likely reviewing your cover letter along with many others. If you can, highlight main points in a bullet point format—it is better than hiding them in the middle of a long paragraph.

9-Don’t be ordinary.

“I believe that I have the skills, abilities, and passion to be a great access to your organization.” This type of statement may be true, but a majority of every other candidate will say the exact type of thing. Say it a different way by using a story as talked about above. Don’t make the letter too long either. Keeping the letter to one page in length is important, but that doesn’t mean you have to take up the entire page. Make the letter as short as humanly possible while still getting the points across you feel are necessary. Another good way to stick out is by signing your letter (sending a PDF is always better than sending a .doc file, since PDFs are cleaner). If you can’t print, scan, or sign each one, then get a copy of your signature as an image file and paste it into your letter—it will make your letter stand out. Note: make sure to only do this if you send a PDF file of your cover letter—if you do this in a .doc format it will look weird to the recruiter.

10-Brand yourself.

To really stand out as an ideal candidate, you need to make sure a recruiter reading your cover letter walks away remembering who you are. I often would mention the male pageant I won in college (my official title is “Mr. Business”), tying it into the story I tell or main points I get across. After reading my cover letter the recruiter remembers me as “Mr. Business” or “that guy who won a male pageant,” which helps me stand out and grab their attention. Be careful though, make sure you are being remembered for the right thing; touting victory in a male pageant may not be the best way to brand yourself for many jobs.Use the tools I listed to make your resume and cover letter submission stand out in the stack.







           A Millennial’s Cover Letter to Future Employers


To Whom It May Concern;

I want to work for you. We both live in a world run by the almighty dollar, a fact that cannot be escaped or evaded no matter how much we occupy. I would love to have my debts disappear and be given the freedom to live my life without the burdens of fiscal responsibility, however this is only a dream that I will not allow to keep me unawares of my reality. I need to work to live, and I want to work for you.

I know I am young and fresh out of college and to many this makes me a toddler in the professional world. Barely able to walk and talk with the adults of industry, at best I would be another body in the way and at worst a large wrench in the machinery. In your eyes my lack of knowledge and experience would hamper progress at every turn.

I am tired of my youth being looked down upon as a weakness and something that must be cured if I am to have worth. I want to be seen as a valuable addition to the workforce who has much to offer in the way of unconventionality and a different way of thinking. Your ideas may have worked in the past but there is nothing to say they are beyond benefiting from a fresh set of eyes reviewing them.
I humbly ask that you throw the presuppositions you have about me out the window and take a chance on all the great possibilities that youth and inexperience has to offer. Instead of looking at my short resume casting it aside because it isn’t a curriculum vitae of spectacular length on special paper and take a moment to consider what and who I really am. It can be hard to deduce from a few pieces of paper but I am more than what I lack.

I am fully aware of my own inexperience; you do not have to remind me of this by denying my application on its basis. I hunger for knowledge and promise to take in every bit that you would pass on to me. My brain is still wired to gain new information at astonishing rates, college was only a sip of the vast possibilities that exist in the world and it left me only wanting more. I give my word to be teachable and trainable, I want to be shown that which I don’t know so that I may remedy that ignorance.

However I promise something else, something even more important than my desire to learn; I promise to never become a clone of you or anyone in the organization. I will be my own person and bring my own abilities to the table. I don’t want to have my identity squashed under your desire for uniformity. I can become something great if you will allow it.

You list positions that require experience in the very same position, a circular reasoning fallacy if there ever was one. It would appear you want as little change as possible. While I would agree that change for changes sake is not always the best option, stagnation for any reason is a worse option.
My youth may be a burden at times but brings with it benefits that would more than make up the difference. I have new ideas, perspectives, and abilities; all things that I would jump at the opportunity to use for you. I now it is a tired cliché but perhaps the very reasons you would deny me a position are the very “outside of the box” things that could benefit the company.

I cannot promise I will not fail or make mistakes, but I can say that I will admit failure when it is time. I can also say that I will pursue success with vigor in hopes of never reaching that time. Besides, there is a good chance I will fail in new and exciting ways that may bring with them surprising silver linings.

I graciously submit myself to your judgment based on a resume, cover letter, and maybe some application form which only give an insubstantial picture of my potential. I would ask you to put down your existing ideas of negativity towards fresh faces entering the work force and look upon us as a resource to be benefited from. My desires for employment are above that of entry level, minimum wage jobs, working a few of those was enough to learn that. I want to go out and make a difference in the world and you are the one who can grant that wish or drop it in the dirt. I want to work, I want to be something, I want to use my abilities and gifts, and I want to do this all for you.

Sincerely,
Christian Clifton


Source:www.businessinsider.com/www.flexijobs.com (compiled)