Cover Letters Are Different

In the case of cover letters, we have a slightly different job to do. For that matter, we have a slightly different objective. Cover letters are rarely if ever read by the same first readers (the HR people) that read the resumes. Instead, cover letters are in fact normally read by the supervisors who will be in charge of the new employee. Hence, we still need to worry about key words, but we also want to communicate that we can and will be able to do the work involved in this position.

You may be asking why the difference. To put it frankly, the HR person has no idea what you may be doing in your job (unless you’re applying for an HR position, like the previous example), while the future supervisor does. So while the keywords and basic qualifications are enough to get the resume past the first review, you need to provide more detail for the next review.

Similar to how we generate our ideas for the resume, we still look to the job ad for clues as to what to put in the cover letter. However, instead of a page-long list of our qualifications (as in resumes), we provide narratives—or stories—that demonstrate these qualifications. Thus, we want to again look at the job ad and generate two or three examples of things we have done in the past—whether they be past employment, classes we’ve taken or volunteer projects we’ve been a part of—that prove we can take on the job we are applying for. 

And as this suggests, cover letters have a completely different format than resumes. Resumes are designed to be scanned. It’s been proven that the easiest and quickest way to locate information on a page is through the use of lists. Bullets and numbers next to a list item act like guides for the eye. While reading, the eye simply aligns upon a bullet or number, and then travels to the right to get the relevant information (this is discussed more in the resumes chapter). In our case the relevant information is made up of the keywords taken from the job ad. Hence, resumes use lists because we want the person scanning it to easily and quickly pick out the keywords needed to understand that we are qualified for the job. 

Cover letters, however, are meant to be read, so information can be slightly more buried in the text than it can be in a resume. A person reading a cover letter is willing to take more time to find the important information, just like you might when you read a magazine or newspaper article. So the format for cover letters is just as important as the format for resumes, and just like resumes there are specific reasons for the cover letter’s format. 
 
Look at the following cover letter that corresponds to both the previous job ad and resume. Notice how different it is in comparison to the resume, and how it covers different aspects of the job that the resume doesn’t really address. Also notice how differently it does this, using anecdotes instead of lists (for a full-readable size, select here).

We’ll go over cover letters in detail later, but for right now it’s important to see that we are still drawing from the job ad in order to create the letter. In fact there is nothing in the letter not addressed in the job ad. It is also important to notice that the format is more like a standard letter, and less like a list of qualifications.

For technical, professional and business communication help in the Las Cruces, NM area, visit Lanier Infomedia. 

Last update: 27-03-2009 13:35