Jeremy Johnson has a new guest blog post this week with great tips on why you should customize your cover letter and how you can do it.
Jeremy is a recruiter in Kansas City for EHD Technologies, a recruiting, staffing and managed services company serving the IT, Engineering and Automotive industries.
You can also follow him on Twitter at jsquaredkc
Customize Your Cover Letters
I think half of the job hunting topics I write about are less advice and more a plea – a plea for people to just STOP!!!! Even today, with so much information at people’s fingertips on job-hunting tips and strategies, I guess I’m still stocked that more people don’t take advantage of it, and they continue to make the same mistakes that people have been making for years.
One mistake I continue to see consistently is a generic cover letter that people use for every job to which they apply – the standard boilerplate verbiage that tries to be all things to all people and ends up being nothing to no one. I can usually tell from the very first line whether a cover letter is a standard form that that person uses every time. And when I see that, I usually don’t read much further.
They always start out the same way, will a broad sweeping statement about how their “diverse experience” and “enthusiasm/teamwork/dedication” make them the “perfect candidate” for “a position in your organization.” Don’t do this! It’s a dead giveaway that you took no time to tell me why you’re the right fit for this particular job. It screams “shotgun approach” to how you’re conducting the job search – that you see a job, grab your standard cover letter, slap it into the application and then send it on its way. Then you see another job, grab your standard cover letter, etc………. time after time, application after application, submittal after submittal. You get the picture.
It’s adding a cover letter only because you think you should. It’s a checkmark on your job application to-do list. If it’s done as an afterthought, you might as well not do one at all. It’s just a waste of time.
It gives me no reason – no incentive – to want to pursue you. It makes me realize you’re going through the motions, probably wouldn’t even know which job I was even calling about since you’ve applied to so many, and I’m immediately wondering if following up will be a wild goose chase on time I don’t have.
In today’s recruiting and hiring world where everything moves at the speed of light (at least on my side of the fence) with everything being online, we’re just inundated with information. Too many emails, too many applications, too many resumes. I’m not even convinced the cover letter is read half the time anymore because we’re so crunched for time that we just want to get to “the bottom line,” which is the resume. So, with your audience having an attention deficit problem when it comes to reviewing your application anyway, you have to customize your cover letter more than ever if you expect it to get a second glance. Time is just too short for us.
Here are a few don’ts and in my next post, I’ll give some guidelines on what you should include in a customized cover letter:
First, don’t say “To Whom It May Concern” unless you have absolutely no idea who’s reading the cover letter. On my own job postings, my name is attached. Yet, still people address cover letters to me with the “To Whom It May Concern” or “Dear Hiring Manager” or “Dear Sir or Ma’am.” Not good.
Don’t say you’re “interested in a position with your company.” You applied to a specific position. Why wouldn’t you say that you’re interested in that position? Oh yeah. It’s because your cover letter is generic.
Don’t just make the cover letter a list of what you’re currently doing or about your life story. Your audience only cares about learning as quickly as possible if you can solve the needed problems in the position to which you’re applying. Don’t give us stories. Give us the bottom line of how your experience and qualifications will allow you to perform this job effectively. Other information than that is just fluff and unnecessarily lengthens a document that shouldn’t be that long anyway.
Don’t be vague. Be specific about why you’re the right fit. That pretty-much covers it.
Don’t hang your hat on your qualities. Hang your hat on your qualifications. It may be great that you’re a leader, fast learner, team player, detail-oriented, enthusiastic, highly motivated, a good communicator. Fine. But none of those things are what get you the first phone call. It’s your hard skills matched to the needs of that job that do that. Plus, it’s easy to say all of these things on paper – which, I think, is why so many people do it – but it’s hard to prove. Bottom line, it doesn’t set you apart. Everyone says these things. Not everyone, however, has the technical qualifications for every job.