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Become Irreplaceable by Tanner Stransky |
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Ace The Interview by Lindsey Pollak |
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Confidence Boosters by Carol Kivler |
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First Timer's Finance Plan by Tina Pestalozzi |
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"Figure out when you work best. I'm a morning person and have been ever since a very young age. So when I have a lot of work to do and don't feel particularly productive, I go to bed early and wake up at five or six, because I'm the most efficient at that time. It also helps that no one is updating their blogs or sending me YouTube videos at five or six in the morning, so that increases my productivity drastically." —Jess L., MIT |
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Write a Stand Out Cover Letter
A dull cover letter could prevent you from getting your dream job. Don’t let your resume end up in the reject pile. Here are some tricks for writing a letter that will help you stand out.
Identify the person who will read your letter and address him or her directly. Not only does your reader appreciate being addressed by name, but this separates your letter from the ones written by people who didn’t take the time to do a little research into the company.
Put focus on an employer. The Stand Out letter focuses on the employer. You needn’t gush with insincere praise when explaining why you’d like to work for a company, but intelligent compliments are a staple of effective cover letters.
Sell your benefits. By correlating an employer’s requirements with your top competencies and skills, knowledge, work experience, and achievements, you can believably claim that a specific organization is a perfect place for you to make a valuable contribution.
Speak the right language. Consider the recipient of your information. If the organization is conservative and traditional, keep the presentation of your information conservative and traditional. By contrast, if it’s creative and entrepreneurial, a splash of gifted words or a flourish in design gets you in the door.
Showcase your attractive personality. Your cover letter is a chance to bring more personality to your application than a resume can carry. It suggests, even subliminally, whether you’re open to new ideas, results driven, energetic, a people person, cheerful, agreeable, and cooperative, to name a few premium employer-pleasing qualities.
Keep a measure of control. Toward the end of the letter, tell the recipient that you’ll call to set up the interview within a given time frame.
Read and reread. Go beyond using your computer’s spell checker tool to review your letters for typos and grammatical errors. Ask a friend to look them over.
Adapted from Cover Letters for Dummies by Joyce Lain Kennedy ®. Provided with permission from John Wiley & Sons and available wherever books are sold.