Carefully Crafted Cover Letter
Each month, Amy Pesavento reads nearly 200 letters from people hoping to land a job at Wallace Computer Services Inc. Each month, she finds a few good ones and a few that cause her to cringe.
"Some cover letters are addressed to me but refer to another company in the body of the letter," says Pesavento, human resources manager at the Denver, Colorado-based firm. "Some writers say, 'I will follow up with you in two weeks,' but it's rare that they actually call."
Ben Gotkin, a college recruiter for Marconi Systems Technology Inc. in Rockville, Maryland, is all too familiar with the cookie-cutter approach to letter writing--and the mistakes writers of such letters sometimes make.
"It's obviously someone who's sent a resume to 500 companies out there," he says, pointing out that sending such a letter does nothing to set a candidate apart from other job seekers and plenty to hurt his or her chances of landing a job.
Pesavento and Gotkin agree that they're much more likely to be impressed with a letter that shows them the candidate possesses the skills necessary for the job and understands what the company does.
"I like to see a little bit about their background," Pesavento says. "I also like to see something that shows they've researched the company and that they would be a good fit."
Gotkin adds that the letter should be concise.
"Don't make it an essay or a novel," he says. "If it is easy to read and doesn't ramble, then it's probably what you want."
Marcy Bullock, coordinator of career services for North Carolina State University's College of Agriculture & Life Science, encourages students to customize their letters using short, well-chosen pieces of information about the company.
"It's not generic. You can throw some 'sound bites' in," she says. "Let's say you're writing to American Cyanamid, you can say you understand they have one of the top 10 crop-protection chemicals on the market right now."
Bullock says job seekers can learn more about a company's products, services, and corporate style by visiting its web site and reading literature like brochures and annual reports. That information, she says, can help determine if a letter is phrased formally or informally.
John B. Frick, director of the JOBSearch Center at Northern Michigan University, agrees that research is an important part of the cover letter--as long as it's presented concisely.
"It shows the employer that the student took initiative," he says.