Saturday 26 November 2011

Top 5 Tips for Creating an Impressive Cover Letter

Cover letters are a major part of your work placement application. However, a lot of people I’ve spoken to, find the cover letter the most difficult - particularly in terms of content and style. Therefore, I have listed five top tips below that will begin to help you with writing your cover letter. However, I always suggest undertaking your own research too.

1) Talk about your achievements

Introduce yourself and talk about any achievements or skills that you think are the most relevant. You could have this at the start of your cover letter in a ‘short and sweet’ introductory paragraph.

2) Focus on the company

Make sure you show an interest in the company that you are applying for, and what they do. For example, if they are a book publisher, make sure it is clear that you have an interest in their books. Specifically, this is important if you are applying to a well-known company as they will receive plenty of work applications, and will then start to filter people off this way.

3) Be concise and to the point

The cover letters are not meant to be long. I would say between half to a page long. Therefore, it is important to be to the point and concise rather than having extensive sentences, which in effect do not say anything.

4)Proof read

It is very important to proof read your cover letter, and of course, your entire application. Employers will not be very forgiving if they see numerous spelling and grammar mistakes, and this is even greater if you are applying for an editorial based position.

5) Make sure you do the final checks

Once your cover letter has been completed and you are happy with the style and content, you can then make the final checks. Try to avoid fancy fonts, for instance, size 12 Times New Roman or Arial will be fine. Additionally, make sure word processor has completed a spell and grammar check.

For those unaware, you can also improve the spell and grammar check that word processor does within the settings. Therefore, to improve the checker you can set it to check both grammar and writing style, and as well, it can show you readability statistics.

So don’t hesitate and start applying.

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