Cover Letter is often an optional when you apply for a job and sometimes is not required at all. However a good Cover Letter could help you to stand out as a candidate and differentiate you from other candidates.
In particularly it is important for several reasons:
Personalized introduction It allows you to introduce yourself to the employer in a more personal way than a resume alone.
Show enthusiasm It's an opportunity to express your interest in the position and company. Mentioning company-specific information demonstrates your initiative and interest.
Highlight key qualifications You can emphasize your most relevant skills and experiences for the specific job.
Demonstrate communication skills A well-written cover letter showcases your writing abilities.
Address potential concerns You can explain any gaps in employment or unique circumstances.
Provide context You can explain how your background relates to the job requirements.
Cultural fit You can convey your personality and how you might fit into the company culture.
Also it allows you to expand on points in your resume and tell a coherent career story.
How to write a Cover Letter
In the internet you often can find “Cover Letter” templates, e.g like this one:
As you can guess, other candidates found it too and poor Hiring Manager is getting many Cover Letter like this and can easily spot that you used the template.
What is usually happen with such Cover Letters?
It will be thrown away and you will get a cold (templated) rejection letter!
Writing the Cover Letter yourself is not that difficult. In the nutshell it should contain answers to 3 questions:
Who are you?
Why us?
Why you?
Here is an example following this structure:
If you have any personal connection to the company or domain they work in, don’t hesitate write about it too (e.g you admire them as customer, believe in their mission, etc).
Using AI tools
Of course it’s impossible to spend many hours or days for every position you apply to write a very unique Cover Letter for them. GenAI (ChatGPT, Perplexity, calude.ai, etc) could be significant help in this task. The prompt will look something like this:
I’m a job candidate with following experience… (copy your CV) please create short and concise Cover Letter for the following role… (copy the job description)
As usual with GenAI, feel free to experiment. And keep in mind, that the more details you specify, the better the outcome will be. By the way, if you use huntr to track the job search, also has a nice feature to generate pretty decent Cover Letters for you.
Read the output from GenAI carefully, adjust to your style and add some details to personalize it more.
Never send Cover letter crafted by GenAI without reading and editing it first!
Key takeaways
Good Cover Letter can significantly increase your chances to get invited to interview
Bad Cover Letter might be reason for immediate rejection
Comments