Covering letters, when you’re applying for jobs, whether by sending in a CV, using a job board or completing an application form, have become ever more important in a post-pandemic world.
Covering letters are to persuade the recruiter to read your CV by highlighting some of your key skills and experience in relation to the role.
Are Covering Letters Still Needed?
A few years ago the answer to this question would have been a fairly resounding “no”, but as it’s become easier to apply for jobs online this has changed.
It is now so easy to apply for jobs online that job seekers are often taking a scattergun approach to applying and recruiters are deluged with applications.
Many applications will have been made without reading the job specification correctly, and their CV will not have been tailored to the vacancy. Recruiters are now even quicker at rejecting these applications as there are just too many to look at in any detail.
They get dozens of applications from people who just aren’t genuinely interested in the job role they’re working on, and they have to go through the frustration of being “ghosted” by applicants multiple times a day.
If you send in a tailored covering letter with your application, that tells the recruiter that you are serious, and they then get serious about you as a candidate. This means that they will invest their time in promoting you to their client, with whom they have to retain credibility, and you’re far more likely to get an interview. And without an interview, you can’t get the job.
What Makes a Good Covering Letter?
It must be relevant to the position, to the point, and well laid out.
It gives you a quick way to highlight some of your experience and/or skill set that is especially relevant to the role which, with a well-written CV, will make you really stand out as a credible candidate.
Easy enough to say, but writing a good covering letter can be hard. That’s why I’ve produced a simple and free guide to getting this done as painlessly as possible.
Just click here to download the guide in MS Word. It explains how to tailor a covering letter to a specific advert and also includes a couple of examples to get you started – often the hardest part!
If you don’t feel that writing a covering letter is something you want to do, I can do it for you. A customisable covering letter is a part of the services that I offer and I charge £24.99. When you get your free review this will be shown separately as an add-on item.
