Cover Letters That Sell

David and Jack applied for the same job. They were equally qualified, and each submitted an excellent resume that emphasized accomplishments, training, positive work ethic and dedication.
John included a general cover letter that outlined his career history and aspirations. To save time, he used the same letter to apply for every job opening he looked at. Linda put more effort into her letter. She found out the hiring manager's name and addressed him directly. She researched the company and learned about its mission, past performance, goals and corporate culture. She also studied the job description and clearly spelled out how she was an excellent match for that particular opening. Linda backed up her claims by highlighting examples of her past success.
Although the candidates were equally qualified, Linda's extra effort landed her a job interview. John never got called.

Research Before You Write

The more you know about the employer's needs, the more compelling your letter can be. Review company Web sites, brochures, sales flyers and other promotional materials to glean pertinent information. If possible, speak with current employees to get the inside scoop. Search newspaper archives, public libraries and career-center resources. Do a keyword search using the company name and see what turns up.

Determine Your Unique Selling Points
With the knowledge that you have about the employer, how would you help achieve organizational goals? Set yourself apart: If there are 100 other applicants vying for the same position, why should the hiring manager take a chance on you? Make a list of the top five reasons you're an excellent candidate.
Construct Your Letter

• Heading/Date/Inside Address: If you are writing a traditional (not email) letter, select a standard business-letter format such as block style. Your letter's design should match your resume.
   
• Salutation: It's best to address your letter to a specific person (e.g., "Dear Ms. Jones:"), but use "Dear Hiring Manager," if there's no way to find that out. Use "Dear Search Committee:" if the decision will be made by committee. Avoid stale salutations such as "Dear Sir/Madam:" and "To Whom it May Concern:."
   
• Opening Paragraph: Hiring managers are busy and do not care to wade through fluff. Your opening paragraph should clearly state the position for which you're applying. Include a reference code if requested and the referral source (e.g., recommendation from a current employee, Monster, etc.). Your opening may also include a synopsis of why you are a top candidate for the position. For example:
  
  
  Your position advertised on Monster is an excellent fit with my qualifications, as the enclosed resume will attest. My background includes 10 years of success managing international sales programs, top-ranked regions and Fortune 500 accounts. I offer particular expertise in the high tech sector, with in-depth knowledge of networking technology…
  
  
• Body: Your letter's body contains the sales pitch. This is your chance to outline the top reasons why you're worthy of an interview. When writing the body text, keep in mind that hiring managers are self-centered -- they want to know what you can do for them, not learn about your life story. Demonstrate how your credentials, motivation and track record would benefit their operation. Review your top five selling factors (the ones you jotted down when doing your company research) and weave them into the body, perhaps as a bulleted list. Back up achievements with specific examples of how your performance benefited current and former employers. Precede your bulleted list with a statement such as "Highlights of my credentials include:" or "Key strengths I offer include:."
  
  Keep your letter positive and upbeat. This is not the place to write a sob story about your employment situation. Put yourself in the hiring manager's shoes -- would you call yourself in for an interview?
   
• Closing Paragraph: Your final paragraph should generate a call for action, so express your strong interest in an interview and state that you will follow up soon to confirm your resume was received and discuss the possibility of meeting face-to-face.
   
• Complimentary Close and Your Name: End with a professional close such as "Best regards," "Sincerely" or "Respectfully yours."

Top 10 Resume Mistakes to Avoid

It's deceptively easy to make mistakes on your resume and exceptionally difficult to repair the damage once an employer gets it. So prevention is critical, especially if you've never written one before. Check out this resume guide to the most common pitfalls and how you can avoid them.

 

1. Typos and Grammatical Errors

Your resume needs to be grammatically perfect. If it isn't, employers will read between the lines and draw not-so-flattering conclusions about you, like: "This person can't write," or "This person obviously doesn't care."

2. Lack of Specifics
Employers need to understand what you've done and accomplished. For example:
A. Worked with employees in a restaurant setting.
B. Recruited, hired, trained and supervised more than 20 employees in a restaurant with $2 million in annual sales.
Both of these phrases could describe the same person, but the details and specifics in example B will more likely grab an employer's attention.

3. Attempting One Size Fits All

Whenever you try to develop a one-size-fits-all resume to send to all employers, you almost always end up with something employers will toss in the recycle bin. Employers want you to write a resume specifically for them. They expect you to clearly show how and why you fit the position in a specific organization.

4. Highlighting Duties Instead of Accomplishments
It's easy to slip into a mode where you simply start listing job duties on your resume. For example:

• Attended group meetings and recorded minutes.
   
• Worked with children in a day-care setting.
   
• Updated departmental files.

Employers, however, don't care so much about what you've done as what you've accomplished in your various activities. They're looking for statements more like these:

• Used laptop computer to record weekly meeting minutes and compiled them in a Microsoft Word-based file for future organizational reference.
   
• Developed three daily activities for preschool-age children and prepared them for a 10-minute holiday program performance.
   
• Reorganized 10 years worth of unwieldy files, making them easily accessible to department members.

5. Going on Too Long or Cutting Things Too Short

Despite what you may read or hear, there are no real rules governing resume length. Why? Because human beings, who have different preferences and expectations where resumes are concerned, will be reading it.

That doesn't mean you should start sending out five-page resumes, of course. Generally speaking, you usually need to limit yourself to a maximum of two pages. But don't feel you have to use two pages if one will do. Conversely, don't cut the meat out of your resume simply to make it conform to an arbitrary one-page standard.

6. A Bad Objective

Employers do read your resume's objective statement, but too often they plow through vague pufferies like, "Seeking a challenging position that offers professional growth." Give employers something specific and, more importantly, something that focuses on their needs as well as your own. Example: "A challenging entry-level marketing position that allows me to contribute my skills and experience in fund-raising for nonprofits."

7. No Action Verbs

Avoid using phrases like "responsible for." Instead, use action verbs: "Resolved user questions as part of an IT help desk serving 4,000 students and staff."

8. Leaving Off Important Information

You may be tempted, for example, to eliminate mention of the jobs you've taken to earn extra money for school. Typically, however, the soft skills you've gained from these experiences (e.g., work ethic, time management) are more important to employers than you might think.

9. Visually Too Busy

If your resume is wall-to-wall text featuring five different fonts, it will most likely give the employer a headache. So show your resume to several other people before sending it out. Do they find it visually attractive? If what you have is hard on the eyes, revise.

10. Incorrect Contact Information

I once worked with a student whose resume seemed incredibly strong, but he wasn't getting any bites from employers. So one day, I jokingly asked him if the phone number he'd listed on his resume was correct. It wasn't. Once he changed it, he started getting the calls he'd been expecting. Moral of the story: Double-check even the most minute, taken-for-granted details -- sooner rather than later.

Five Ways to Rejuvenate Your Resume

In a competitive job market, we have to do everything we can to make our resumes more attractive to hiring managers. This can be difficult for older workers, who fear that even if there's no bias (subconscious or conscious) against job seekers on the mature side of 40, a resume may make them look overqualified for the positions they want.

Here are five ways to make your resume more youthful, so you can score the interview -- and make an impression with your experience and enthusiasm, instead of your assumed birth date.

1. Remove Dates from Your Education

Hiring managers (as well as resume-reading software) may be looking for certain minimum requirements in the area of education. But they likely won't think about dates unless you mention them. If your life followed a typical pattern, the dates of your college degrees are an age indicator. (But education dates are a double-edged sword -- if you got your degree or certification relatively recently, you may seem inexperienced; too long ago, "over the hill.")

2. Focus on Recent Relevant Experience

Of course you're proud of all your accomplishments -- but the people looking at your resume are interested only in the skills and achievements that relate directly to the position they're trying to fill. Many job seekers (not only those with long work histories) make the mistake of putting too much on their resumes.

For example, if you're a 50-year-old marketing professional applying for a management position, the fact that you were congressional page in the late 1970s is interesting -- but probably not relevant. (And the fact that you were, say, a data-entry clerk for eight months in the late 1980s is neither of those things.) Look at the earliest jobs on your resume -- do they say relevant and unique things that will make you more attractive to this particular employer? If not, cut them.

3. Focus on New Technologies

"Teletype," "DOS," Wite-Out correction fluid: your resume should have none of these things on it. Remove all references to outmoded technology from your resume. If you're a graphic designer, for instance, you know the design program Macromedia xRes is no longer being used -- so why would you waste valuable resume space on touting your xRes skills? List only software programs and technologies that are current in your industry.

4. Get Online and Get Connected

Like it or not, many jobs now require a familiarity with social media. And almost all job seekers can benefit from the knowing how to navigate Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and industry-specific online communities. For many hiring managers and recruiters, if you're not online, you don't exist.

5. Give Your Resume a Personal Voice

Old-fashioned resumes contain a lot of lifeless writing, vague generalities and jargon -- words and phrases that have lost all meaning through overuse: "detail-oriented," "team player," "responsible for" and so on.

Instead of saying you're detail-oriented, give an example of how your attention to detail saved a past employer money. Instead of saying you're a team player, tell the hiring manager about how your team worked together to increase profits. And never tell a hiring manager you were "responsible for" something -- tell her what you achieved. Use numbers to quantify those achievements, and use strong verbs.

Finally, don't be afraid of "I" statements in your resume -- enthusiastically telling your story as only you can will give your resume more vitality and help it stand out from the pack.