Posts Tagged ‘business – career’

Tips For Writing Professional Cover Letters

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

Cover letters are a huge component of applying to any job. You should always send one with your resume unless the application specifically says not to. A letter explains specifically why you are applying for a job and why the employer should consider you. The resume only lists your experience. Letters let employers know a lot more about you and see your professional communication in action.

If you do not know how to properly write a letter, you could be denied an interview. Here are some huge mistakes that can cost you a job. The first and most obvious are typos or poor grammar. Repeating yourself, using non-standard fonts, being overly-demanding, obviously lying, or being in any way unprofessional are other things that make employers not want to hire you.

A little common sense goes a long way. You may be incredibly witty, but a letter is not the place to show it. Humor can be easily misinterpreted. Keep your charm and people skills for the interview. Letters are informative, not for entertainment.

Length is where many people get in trouble. These letters should be anywhere from a third of a page long to a full page long. Too brief means that you are not concerned enough about getting the job to bother writing more. Too wordy shows that you cannot express yourself concisely. No one will read beyond a page.

Expand just enough to give them information to support your resume. Do not just recap what the resume already says. Tell them of your life experiences, as long as they pertain very explicitly to the job. Each life experience should be no more than a sentence long. No one cares about the time your grandmother was in the hospital or your recent vacation to Italy.

Let’s say you have a standard letter you send out to many different places. It has been checked over dozens of times and it is perfect and professional. Many people have such documents. It will be rendered completely useless if you send it to every company just as it is. Letters must be personalized to the job. Use the company name and position you are applying for in the body somewhere. Discuss the traits that are mentioned in the description.

Employers really provide you with everything you need to insert into your letter. If one of the qualifications requires you to be able to multitask well, then you should write somewhere in the letter, “I have much former work experience that required multitasking, and I do so with ease, ” or something to that effect. Employers want to see that you read the application careful and considered all aspects of the job.

Formatting is where some people get in trouble, especially since online submissions have become more popular. If your standard letter is designed to be mailed out, then you must change the format when you submit it online. This means getting rid of your own name and address (and that of the company’s) above the salutation at the top of the page. You should also get rid of the space you left blank to sign your name. There is no need. Delete the word “Enclosure” at the bottom of the page. You do not need to signify that there is an enclosure if there is no envelope! Do the opposite for all of this if your standard letter is for online and you are currently sending it out through the mail.

Find the best resume cover letters to use for your next job application. There are many sample cover letters that you can find for free. Go online now and learn more.

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The Important Tips On Writing Great Cover Letters

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

When it comes to writing great cover letters, it’s all about structure and coherency. You need to have a beginning, middle and end, and you need the whole thing to read well. Look at successful cover letters written by others and see what they do, and remember that one of the best ways to be successful is to look at what other successful people have done and copy them, if not word for word, then at least in spirit.

So, read the following steps, and you should be able to figure out how to write your own great cover letter so as to get that loan, grant or scholarship you’re after. Just trust in your own ability as a writer, and… Well, if all else fails, go ahead and hire a professional ghost writer for a few cents a word in order to get the cover letter just right so as to accomplish your goals…

Bang Out a First Draft

It shouldn’t take you more than ten or twenty minutes. All you wanna do here is just bang it out very quickly so that you can have something to work with. Just remember: Beginning, middle, and end. Other than that, just write it out however you please and make sure to include all the information that you feel is important.

Double Check Your Facts

Get all your papers together to make sure that everything you say in your letter is not only true, it’s accurate, too. If you’re making stuff up, or if you just can’t cite your achievements and purpose correctly, you’re not going to get anywhere with this letter.

Put it Aside for Now

It’s generally recommended that you take a break between the first and second draft. For a novel, you might wait months. For a letter, a day or two should do. This way you’ll get some distance from it and be able to look at it more objectively. Less like something you created, and more like something that you simply need to edit and take care of.

Write Your Second Draft

Writing the second draft is really all about just removing everything that doesn’t work. With this step, you need to be ruthless, you cannot have any sentimental attachment to particularly good or clever sentences or anything. Just remove every single thing that doesn’t really help, that isn’t necessary. It’s all about what’s structurally integral to the letter.

Check Again

Make sure it reads well, make sure you’ve covered everything, and that it does have the three part structure with beginning middle and end.

Write Out the Final Draft

You should have everything in place now in terms of the actual content of the letter, but you need one more, final draft in order to give it a nice polish, to look for typos and make sure your sentence structure is clear and coherent. You shouldn’t do anymore rewrites after this. If you get in the habit of rewriting and rewriting, then for one, you’ll never finish, and for two, you’ll wind up with a jumbled, incoherent pile of ideas rather than a clear, structured letter.

Want to apply for a grant or scholarship? We have got the inside skinny on great sample cover letters including resume cover letters .

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What Job Seekers Know Concerning The Job Cover Letter

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

A job cover letter is your first chance to make a good impression on a new employer. A cover letter should be sent any time that you send a resume; however, if the advertisement you are responding to requests that you send the cover letter it is all the more important.

Before you send the cover letter it is vitally important that it be free of grammatical or spelling errors. Use the spell and grammar check on your computer, but know that these are not faultless. Have another person check your work before sending the final copies. Many employers will discard any letters that have spelling or grammatical errors so be sure that yours are free of any mistakes.

The letter is designed to sell you to your future employer. Companies may not have an interest in your needing more money than you currently make, but they are very interested in the skills you have to offer to the company. A well written letter is the key to getting an interview.

While there are many form letters that you can find on the internet as well as templates in word processors, remember every other applicant has the same templates available to them. Make sure that you have personalized the letter to follow the general style, but in a way that still reflects your own personality.

Your cover letter needs to be different for each position you apply. It may be tempting to pull a letter up that you have saved for another position and doctor it for the next position. The letter should address the areas of concern listed in the advertisement. Relate your experience to each of those key areas the employer has listed. If you do not have one of the areas of expertise, be honest but show how you have learned new skills needed for a job in the past.

If the company to which you are applying, consider purchase and use of resume paper for both the cover letter and the resume. The paper is a heavy weight paper that is 100 percent cotton. It can set apart your resume from all the others in the pack.

When jobs are plentiful and workers are few, a sloppy cover letter may work to get you a job, although it may not be your first choice. At times when jobs are few and there are hundreds of applicants for each opening, the cover letter can be the best chance of landing the interview and the best job that is available for someone with your experience and expertise.

Once you get that important interview, do not forget the important follow up letter. The second letter should reiterate how you are a good match for the job and let the potential employer know that you want the job as well as thank him for his time. Once again, the follow up letter can make the difference between two equally qualified applicants.

A job cover letter needs to be sent with each resume. It should be individualized for the particular job. Follow the general styles and templates available, but let the letter reflect who you are and why you would be a good choice for the job.

Find out more about how to write resume cover letters that is going to have the most impressive impact on potential employers today! When you use the techniques and methods you find to write job cover letters, you’ll get your dream job faster and easier!

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