Cover Letters That Rock
Being popular is a bit of an art form. You never know who will take a shining to you and who won’t. As a youth, I remember that something as simple as witty print on a t-shirt could mean the difference between popularity and isolation.
Since growing up – and I do use the term loosely – I’ve discovered that the popularity contests don’t end in high school. When it comes to job applications, cover letters are the proverbial witty t-shirts. A good cover letter will progress your application, while a bad one will end in rejection.
There are many theories on what constitutes a good cover letter. Researching cover letters on the web can be a bit confusing because almost everybody stakes a claim to having phenomenal material. Some of those claims may be true, but in my opinion, most are not. Not through a lack of imagination but because the content is shallow.
You see in my opinion cover letters should say very little about ‘who’ you are as an individual and a lot about ‘what’ you can contribute as an employee. This means dropping the gaudy one liners and replacing them with meaningful content.
Because cover letters are relatively short each portion of the printed real estate is extremely valuable. Every sentence should work towards establishing common ground with the employer. Finding common ground simply means meeting his criteria. He (the employer) is searching for ‘xyz’ and you can provide ‘xyz’ as demonstrated by some experience where you learned extensively about ‘xy’ and some other experience where you worked with ‘z’.
In order to press my point, I’ll put forward this example. Imagine that you were lost in a foreign city and that you asked for directions to your hotel room. A kind stranger obliges with directions to the hotel and then goes on to explain the travel path to a neighbouring country. Whilst the information pertaining to the international travel is impressive, it does not add value to your immediate goal – to find your hotel room. Employers are in the same boat. Additional irrelevant talents and witty one liners do not belong in a cover letter because they do not add value.
By now you may be alluding to the fact that my article title is cynical. In my opinion Information Technology cover letters should be reasonably dry. They should include rich, relevant content about your experience and they should form obvious connections between the job advertisement criteria and your training, certifications and experience.
This popularity contest is all about contribution. If you can show that you are capable of making a quality contribution to the advertised job then you are putting your best foot forward.
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