HR Nuggets

A lot of job seekers concentrate so much on writing a good resume and pay less attention to writing a decent cover letter. Gone are the days when applicants just forward their Curriculum Vitae (CV) to a recruiter’s email address, expecting to be singled out for an interview invitation. There are usually so many qualified and even more suitable applicants out there, therefore you need to make yours stand out.
Despite having written a wonderful CV (which of course is very important), job applicants should strive to have their resumes accompanied with a good and well-articulated cover letter that depicts professionalism and excellent communication skills.
Cover letter simply means a letter of application, this can be used when applying for any position, except when a job seeker is physically taking his/her CV to a prearranged interview. Cover letter acts as an introduction to your person, skills, experiences and goes further to appeal for an opportunity to be met with the employer or recruiter. Cover letters are very vital and could be major determining factor towards your resume being reviewed or shoved aside.
Employer centric or personalized cover letter is more likely going to attract an interview than a generic cover letter, strive to use either the advertisers last or first name if found on the advert. It is therefore imperative to follow this simple guideline when writing your cover letter.

Guidelines to writing a good Cover Letter

• Cover letters should be concise, direct to the point and a maximum of one page. This is not the time to display your story telling skills. You simply have to say what needs to be said to endear you to the recruiter. If your fishing skill as a hobby has nothing to do with the vacancy in question, then there might be no point filling up space with such information. Simply say what needs to be said and say it well too.
• Introduction- Every cover letter must have an introduction, where a job seeker indicates how he/she got to know about the job opportunity; through advertorial publications, research on the company (sincerely too), unsolicited etc. This portrays the applicant’s sense of seriousness and acts as a means of reviewing the traffic generated from a particular or all channels of advert placements used by the recruiter.
• Body- here is the point where you need to say all you want the recruiter to hear, of course in relation to the skills and vacant position in question. Desist from lifting or repeating your resume but strive to bring your resume to life. Ensure to make a subtle argument on your strengths, weaknesses and how the organization can leverage on your strengths to achieve their organizational goals. It is worthwhile explaining why you have chosen to apply for the position.
• Closing-It is apparent to link your closing to your introduction. For example if the application is unsolicited, you most likely would close with remarks that you will follow up on them after a few days or weeks if there’s no feedback from them. On the other hand, for advertised position kindly indicate that you will be looking forward to hearing from them soon, to discuss further on how you will be an asset to the company.

In writing your cover letter, you must sound very professional but yet very self-confident and less desperate. Generally, focus on what the employers want and not what you can offer irrespective of what recruiter’s desires are. Would I rather invite you for an interview because you have an excellent knowledge of Microsoft package? When in actual sense I am on a look out for marketers who possess excellent interpersonal skills?
In the course of my research, I came across this cover letter (the job seeker has ended up not selling whatever skills, education or experiences he/she has that might be of great benefit to the organization). For pictorial example of a good cover letter, it might be worth it having a look at this corrected Cover letter here.

Do all you can to get your dream job closer to you!!!