Cover Letter Review

From as far as I can remember, I always had problems writing a cover letter. I never knew what exactly to write and when I did write something, it always ended up sounding like I could make a better first impression. Sometimes when applying for jobs that requested a cover letter and resume, I would only send my resume. If I did send a cover letter, it was a basic sounding cover letter that I sent to everyone. I had no clue what I was doing, so I decided it was time for me to start sending out a cover letter that would really showcase me as a candidate. I needed to have a competitive edge against the other candidates. I couldn’t afford not to.

I began searching the internet for help. I came across a few different sites along the way and finally found theresumebuilder.com. The site educated me a lot on just how important resumes and cover letters were. Before I found theresumebuilder.com, I knew cover letters were important, but I had no idea to what extent!

After reading a few articles on the site, I realised that my cover letter was the first real impression a recruiter was getting of me. I thought my first impression was during the interview process, boy was I wrong! I began to wonder how many employers totally dismissed me for a lack of cover letter or for my wrapping paper like cover letter. I wasted so much time sending out my resume and cover letter that everyone was probably dismissing. After employers read my cover letter, they probably didn’t even look at my resume. I couldn’t blame them; it did nothing to capture attention. When I re-read my old cover letter now, it sounds extremely boring.

The articles on the site taught me I had to think of what the primary goal of my cover letter was; to attract the attention of an employer. For the first few sentences, my main goal was just to hook my employer in. I thought about my vocation and the job I was applying for. I decided I would individualize the first few sentences, depending on what job I was applying for. I used the information provided in the job posting, to write something to capture the recruiter.

Another thing that theresumebuilder.com taught me was I had to use key industry words in my cover letter. They keywords I used, where words that I thought each position was looking for; for a bartending position I used “able to handle conflict”, “a people person”, “approachable”, “excellent handling money” etc. I crafted my keywords throughout my resume and noticed and peppered them throughout.

The Resume Builder showed me I needed to use better verb context, throughout my cover letter. The stronger action verbs I used the better results I received. My previous cover letter lacked any action. Some action phrases that are now in my cover letter are “I look forward to hearing from you soon” and “Since I am confident that my skills line up with your expectations, I am eagerly anticipating meeting with you to discuss this position further”.

I also realised that if I used a resume building service, it’s a good idea to use the same service for my cover letter. If I used The Resume Builder to build a resume for me and then wrote my own cover letter, chances are the writing style would be totally different. The reader would be left confused and could probably tell someone else wrote one or both of my pieces. I used The Resume Builder for my resume building services and my cover letter. At first I came to the site only looking for cover letter help but soon realised my resume could use a professional touch. They did such a good job with my resume that I had to use their services to modify my resume. I began sending out my new resume and cover letter immediately and noticed tremendous results. I blamed my unsuccessful job searching on the economy, but now I think my resume and cover letter played a bigger role.