Cover Letter
Your cover letter should communicate the following five items:
- An introduction of yourself.
- How you are currently employed or what you were doing.
- The purpose for writing this letter.
- Some career highlights
- Your contact information.
- Thanking the reader for their time.
You can add additional information, but only when it is requested.
Four things to know about cover letters:
- To get a cover letter read, it needs to take about 15 – 20 seconds to read, approximately 150 – 250 words in length.
- This letter should be used as the body of an email when emailing your resume to a specific individual and your resume sent as an attachment. The recipient will read the email (and thus the cover letter) BEFORE opening the attachment to ensure that a computer virus will not be downloaded.
- This letter is written broadly and its intentions is so that you can apply for anything.
- Getting your cover letter read is arguably the most difficult part of a job search. Your best bet is to keep it brief, going light on information that is already in your resume.