
For example, let’s say you’re currently living in Atlanta, but you want to move to Portland. A thoughtful ending: Don’t waste valuable real estate with some version of, “ Thanks for reading, looking forward to hearing back.” This is a great place to proactively answer potential concerns.Spend several paragraphs highlighting your accomplishments and qualifications that are most relevant to this job by telling short anecdotes, giving specific examples, incorporating numbers wherever you can, and connecting all of it to how well you’d do in this role. A few body paragraphs: Here’s where you back up your claims that you’d be great at this job.

Oh, and make sure you’re describing how you can help the company, rather than just how the company can help you! For ideas and inspiration, check out these examples of cover letter opening lines that really grab your attention. Home in on the main reasons you want this job at this organization. If you’re having trouble, look at the company’s site, social media, and Muse profile (if they have one), as well as employee LinkedIn accounts and so on.

This template is ideal if your career hasn’t followed that perfectly trodden path but you still want to thoughtfully showcase why you’re the right one for the position. That’s why our skills-based template is laid out so each body paragraph highlights one of your transferable skills. įor many of us, tying together three tangentially related experiences, a side gig, and some outside-of-work interests or volunteer work to explain why we could do a job will be more useful than a straightforward career history. I believe that this past experience would allow me to. In this role, I worked on several projects, including.

When I saw the posting for the position at, I was immediately drawn to. If you’ve followed a fairly linear career trajectory and it’s easy to highlight how each of your past experiences has fed into the job you’re applying for, you might choose this template. In other words, it’s arranged so that each of your body paragraphs focuses on one of your past jobs or experiences. We’ve also included tips for using these templates and a list of elements to include in every cover letter whether you use a template or not (and we’ve also got a few full-fledged cover letter examples for inspiration). That’s why we’ve come up with two cover letter templates that will save you some of the time (and possibly agony) that comes with writing a new cover letter for each application. So using the same cover letter each time and just swapping in company names and job titles (at the bare minimum don’t forget to do that!) robs you of a golden opportunity.īut that doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch every time-each cover letter you submit can follow the same basic structure and formulas. When it comes to cover letters, you want to provide a super concise highlight reel that shows why your background and experiences make you an ideal fit for the position in question. OK, well maybe that’s not the worst thing, but it would negate all the time you just spent on your resume.

What’s the worst thing you could do next? Just swap the position title and company name on the cover letter you used for your last job application and hit submit.
