Carefully Crafted Cover Letter

by Barbara Mulligan


Each month, Amy Pesavento reads nearly 200 letters from people hoping to land a job at Wallace Computer Services Inc. Each month, she finds a few good ones ­and a few that cause her to cringe.

"Some cover letters are addressed to me but refer to another company in the body of the letter," says Pesavento, human resources manager at the Denver, Colorado-based firm. "Some writers say, 'I will follow up with you in two weeks,' but it's rare that they actually call."

Ben Gotkin, a college recruiter for Marconi Systems Technology Inc. in Rockville, Maryland, is all too familiar with the cookie-cutter approach to letter writing--and the mistakes writers of such letters sometimes make.

"It's obviously someone who's sent a resume to 500 companies out there," he says, pointing out that sending such a letter does nothing to set a candidate apart from other job seekers and plenty to hurt his or her chances of landing a job.

Pesavento and Gotkin agree that they're much more likely to be impressed with a letter that shows them the candidate possesses the skills necessary for the job and understands what the company does.

"I like to see a little bit about their background," Pesavento says. "I also like to see something that shows they've researched the company and that they would be a good fit."

Gotkin adds that the letter should be concise.

"Don't make it an essay or a novel," he says. "If it is easy to read and doesn't ramble, then it's probably what you want."

Marcy Bullock, coordinator of career services for North Carolina State University's College of Agriculture & Life Science, encourages students to customize their letters using short, well-chosen pieces of information about the company.

"It's not generic. You can throw some 'sound bites' in," she says. "Let's say you're writing to American Cyanamid, you can say you understand they have one of the top 10 crop-protection chemicals on the market right now."

Bullock says job seekers can learn more about a company's products, services, and corporate style by visiting its web site and reading literature like brochures and annual reports. That information, she says, can help determine if a letter is phrased formally or informally.

John B. Frick, director of the JOBSearch Center at Northern Michigan University, agrees that research is an important part of the cover letter--as long as it's presented concisely.

"It shows the employer that the student took initiative," he says.

Frick adds that job seekers who mail their resume and cover letter should take care that they're presented as a package.

"Make it look professional," he says. "Match the paper the resume's on."

For some employers, however, that kind of presentation no longer matters. Carol Dedrick, manager of college relations at National Starch & Chemical Co. in Bridgewater, New Jersey, says her firm now uses Restrak, a system that allows employees to electronically scan all resumes and cover letters.

"Everything is coming in electronically now, she says. "We never see a piece of paper ever, ever, ever."

Dedrick says the switch has brought changes to the way she and her staff read resumes and cover letters.

"The ideal way for students to send us resumes is over e-mail in ASCII text, with just a mini-cover letter that precedes the resume itself," she says, explaining that she won't see the paper documents anyway, and the scanning process can sometimes cause errors to be inserted into a resume or letter.

Dedrick adds that if a job seeker sends a resume and cover letter on paper, the letter may not even be scanned into the system.

"If it says something important, they'll scan it in," she says, explaining that "important" can mean salary information or a description of strong skills.

"I think the highlight is to interpret what you think your strengths are, what you bring to the table," she says.

Pesavento and Gotkin say that while they don't mind receiving resumes and cover letters by mail, they're quite happy with e-mailed and faxed resumes.

"It doesn't matter as much anymore if it's on nice paper," Gotkin says. "For me, it's okay as long as it's readable."

Still, career advisers say it's better to present mailed material neatly--many employers still care about those details. Best of all, they agree, is to know as much as possible about the employer in the first place.

"Your cover letter should be a custom-tailored, personalized summary directed at a key market," Bullock says. "If you really want to have your letter rise to the top of the stack, take the time and really make it shine."

The above article was taken from http://www.jobweb.com/resumesample.aspx?id=556.

Cover Letters and Job Correspondence Samples:  http://www.jobweb.com/students.aspx?folderid=134