As a person who reads way too many cover letters, I’ve developed some pet peeves about their content. Most are a matter of taste, but some are more critical. Here are three for you to consider before crafting your own letters.
Pet Peeve No. 1: Telling the reader how important the job is.
Waxing philosophical is rarely good strategy in business correspondence. Take, for example, this paragraph from a candidate seeking a customer service position:
“Customer service is an essential role and one which I take seriously. It’s very important for the customer to feel valued. It’s also important not to make mistakes with the order. Mistakes cost time and money and make the customer lose confidence in the company …”
Nothing there seems “wrong,” but neither is any of it necessary. This writer believes the reader will be impressed by his or her understanding of customer service. I’m a little impatient sometimes, but I believe the reader will stop reading and move to something more pressing, like resolving an actual customer service problem.
A better opening paragraph would drive to the point immediately, without seeming too aggressive. If the writer’s point is that he or she can perform customer service with few or no mistakes while making the customer feel valued, I vote for just saying that:
“I would like to be hired as your next customer service representative. I am skilled at performing customer service with a consistently low error rate while simultaneously making customers feel valued and boosting their confidence in the product.”
This paragraph isn’t as pretty and skirts some grammar rules, but it makes a point that the employer cares about and does so efficiently. The writer could then give a brief example, or build the case further by offering quotes or statistics from customer feedback forms.
Pet Peeve No. 2: Presuming to know what the reader needs.
If you really want to raise my hackles, write me a letter in which you tell me what I need or what I should be feeling about your virtues as a candidate.
For example, to aggravate me, our customer service candidate might say: “Your team will appreciate my experience and product knowledge.” Or, “You will be excited to see how I can bring your customer service to the next level.”
What is meant to sound like confidence comes off as presumption to my Midwestern sensibilities. I’d be happier with a sentence telling how the candidate will create benefit. For example, “I believe both my experience and product knowledge would benefit your department, as I will be able to jump in quickly to work with your customers.”
Again, the sentence isn’t particularly pretty, but the point is made that the candidate’s knowledge is a fast ramp-up to productivity — which matters to decision-makers.
Pet Peeve No. 3: Over-explaining why the candidate is available.
On the one hand, it seems logical to include this point. We think, “If I were the reader, I’d like to know why the person left their job, or what happened to keep them out of work this long.” This may be true, but I question whether the letter is the appropriate place to raise the point.
For the most part, I’d say it isn’t. Paragraphs or even sentences devoted to one’s own journey or decision-making process break a cardinal rule of job search: It’s not about you. So even though you think you’re answering the other person’s question by providing this detail, in likelihood you’re just distracting them from the only question that matters to them at this stage: What can this person do for me? and, Should I invest any more time in this person?
As a final point, consider the importance of asking for the action that you want to transpire. If you want a meeting (you do), end the letter with that request. Then, unless you’ve been instructed not to (and sometimes even then), call in a few days to request that meeting directly. This is a common business protocol for keeping a process on track, and much more effective than waiting for someone to call you.
