Kandi's Korner - Blog

I received an email yesterday for help with a cover letter to apply for an entry-level position. The proposed cover letter prompted a tweet:

A tip on writing cover letters: don’t use exclamation points. I can’t even do it here for effect. Not professional.

As I considered the tweet this morning, I thought of a follow up tweet:

Cover Letter Tip 2: Express excitement for a job through your words, not your punctuation.

However, I wanted to provide an example, so tweet 2 remains untweeted and this blog post is in progress.

I am passionate about service work and have applied for PR-related jobs with several non-profit organizations. Since I always like to express my desire to support the work of an organization I am applying to, I could include this sentence in my cover letter:

I think the work you do in the community is really important!

However, that’s a fairly general statement, doesn’t tell the prospective employer much about my passion, and ends a bit harshly with the !

So, instead, I recommend revising the sentence to use words, not punctuation, to express my interest in working for the organization.

I attended a multi-cultural high school and did not often see victims of discrimination; however, in college I learned that integration issues are still alive and well. I think the work you do to educate the community on issues of race and discrimination and to promote understanding can make a difference. I hope to use my skills in public relations to promote your timely programs.

Ok, so now that I’ve reworked that exclamation point into a few  sentences, let me analyze my work.

1. I turned a sentence with only one use of “I” into three sentences with four uses of “I.” I consider that a con, so I will likely want to rework the sentences to remove a couple of “I”s.

2. Instead of saying, “the work you do,” I used words that are either in the organization’s mission or very similar, including “race” “discrimination” “understanding.” This tells the employer I know about the organization and the work being done. Using detailed words also tells the employer this cover letter was written specifically for this position. Double pro.

3. I turned one sentence into three fairly long sentences. This is a con. Since this cover letter is for a PR job, I should consider using shorter sentences. Shorter sentences are easier for the reader to understand and retain.

4. I let the employer learn a little bit about me without going into more detail than I think is appropriate. Hopefully I now stand out from the other applicants and the interviewer wants to meet me to learn more about me. This would be a pro.

5. I used words like “you” and “your.” This is a pro.

6. I mentioned my skills in PR to let the employer know I understand this is  an application for a PR job and not a position to implement anti-racism programs. This is a pro.

7. I did not go into detail on my PR skills because I will mention these briefly in a different paragraph. I will not, however, detail all or any of the skills the employer will learn by reading my resume. This is a pro. A cover letter should not be your resume in paragraph form.  A cover letter is your opportunity to introduce yourself and tell the employer something s/he will not learn from your resume. This typically means you should tell the employer why you want to work for that company using the tips I already mentioned.

Also, especially in the case of applying for a job in public relations, I think the cover letter is the most important part of your application. Why? Because if you can’t brand yourself, how can the employer trust you to brand the company?

So, can my new paragraph improve? Sure. But with six pros and two cons, I think I’ll keep it.

What are your cover letter writing tips and examples?

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 7:32 am and is filed under In My Opinion, Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.