Chapter 9: Job Applications
Learning Objectives
1. Represent skills, knowledge, and experience realistically for employment purposes.
iii. Prepare a targeted and persuasive cover letter and resume.
Because the cover letter literally covers the résumé and is thus the first thing the hiring manager sees of you, it plays key role in convincing them to consider your application. Besides introducing the résumé and requesting an interview, the cover letter is a sales pitch explaining how you will benefit the company you’re applying to. In the communications test that is the hiring process, it also proves that you can put coherent, persuasive sentences and paragraphs together when writing formally on the employer’s behalf. The cover letter must be flawless because, like the résumé that follows it, even one writing error could be read as a sign of the poor quality of work to come and prompt the hiring manager to save time by shredding it immediately.
An important distinction in the content between the résumé and cover letter is that the former is focused on your past, the cover letter on your future with the company. Many job applicants wastefully use the cover letter to express in sentences what they listed in point-form in their résumé. To be persuasive, however, the cover letter must convince the employer that you will apply the skills and qualifications developed through previous work, education, and other experience to your future job. They want to see how you think you’ll help meet their business goals and fit the company culture. If you answer the “What’s in it for us if we hire you?” question that hiring managers direct towards any cover letter, you increase your chances of getting an interview.
Is a cover letter even necessary? In cases where you know that the employer thinks they’re just a waste of time, then you can obviously skip it. Sometimes job postings will helpfully clarify whether they want a cover letter or not. What if they don’t say either way, though? The safe bet is to write a cover letter as part of your targeted approach to the job application. It’ll show the hiring manager that you’ve made the extra effort to explain how well you suit the job and give them more information to make a well-informed decision about you. Adding a cover letter looks better than all the applicants who didn’t bother. We’ll see below how the various parts of the cover letter can certainly help sway the hiring manager toward adding you to the interview shortlist.
- 9.3.1: Cover Letter Format
- 9.3.2: Cover Letter Message Parts
- 9.3.3: Cover Letter Editing and Submission
9.3.1: Cover Letter Format
Should you format the cover letter in the personal modified-block style or standard block style? As we saw in §7.1.1 above, these two styles differ first in how they present the sender’s address. The personal modified-block letter simply has the sender’s two address lines at the top but tabbed so that their left edges line up along the vertical centre of the pag