Your cover letter and your resume are the two documents you will need to impress an employer and be granted with an interview. Before your resume could be scrutinized, your cover letter will be most likely read first.

Although you could submit a resume without any cover letter, you could sound more professional and present your resume well with a cover letter. But this type of letter is actually a short letter so you should finish fast. However; since it’s also a short letter, everything you will write is very important.

The Starting Point: Create Connection

The first two or three lines of your cover letter are the most important part of your cover letter. Anything wrong in these first lines will immediately annoy the employer. If he or she has to choose among 20 to 30 candidates, your cover letter and resume will never be read through because of that mistake.

It’s important to create a connection for your starting point. Don’t just use generic greetings such as “To Whom it May Concern”. While this practice is still professional, you’ll never be able to create a connection immediately. Research a little bit so that you’ll know who will read the cover letter. This practice will allow you to immediately connect and easily introduce your resume.

Indicate Things Hard to Write in Resume

After you have created a connection, this is your chance to impress the reader with your writing skills and the attached resume. Write down the things that are hard to indicate in your resume. A good example is a detailed story on how you were able to become a very productive employee in the past. You can specify when your job responsibility became a big factor to the company productivity. This short explanation will never be presented completely in your resume but could be presented well in your cover letter.

Keeping it Short

As already indicated, it is important to keep your cover letter short and simple. You don’t have to amaze your potential employer of your familiarity with various jargons and shortcuts. Be clear on what you mean so that it can be understood immediately.

For the length of the letter, never go beyond a single page. Your cover letter is just a plain introduction of your resume. By keeping it simple, you keep the interest of your employer. A two page cover letter is too much and will be rejected.

Avoiding Clichés

The worst thing that could happen in your cover letter is to write something very obvious. Avoid indicating that you are a highly disciplined professional with knowledge about the industry since everyone else also has the same discipline and knowledge. Write down what could set you apart from other applicants so that you might have a chance of standing out and be considered for the job.

A cover letter is a short document that offers a glimpse of the personality, experience and the resume of the applicant. Compose and edit a well-written cover letter so that you can be considered for an interview and eventually, a career.