Good Cover Letters are as Important as Your Resume

As a hiring manager, I love good cover letters. They can be just as important as your resume, because they can convince me to read your resume.

If you're going to spend many hours writing and polishing your resume, you should not shortchange the letter that will accompany it. Otherwise, your carefully constructed resume may never get read.

Good cover letters will:

• Express your interest in the company and position
• Highlight the most important information from your resume (by most important, I mean most important for that specific job)
• Give me a first impression of you.
• Tell me if you're qualified before I even read your resume

With no letter, I have to read your resume to see if you're qualified. If I don't see it in the first few paragraphs, I'll go on to another one, since I will probably be reviewing dozens and dozens of resumes for a particular job opening.

Remember: the purpose of a resume letter is to get your resume read. As a Hiring Manager, I've learned that the best letters are also usually the best resumes.

In today's very competitive job market, most savvy applicants are going to have a pretty good resume that emphasizes accomplishments and contains the right qualifications and experience. Unfortunately, many of these otherwise savvy job applicants will use the same generic letter for each job opening, reasoning that their resume will speak for itself.

Big mistake!

The applicants with the greatest chance of having their resume actually read and getting an interview are the ones that:

• Find out the Hiring Manager's name if at all possible and address the cover letter to that person specifically.
• Study the job description and clearly outline how they are an excellent match for that specific job opening.
• State their experience and qualifications using keywords from the job ad.

Deciding which applicants to interview can be a very subjective process. An excellent letter could be just the little bit extra that makes you stand out and gets your resume added to the "call for an interview" stack.

Here's more advice:

Cover Letter Tips
Best Cover Letter Format
Sample Cover Letter