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CV Cover Letter

A top-notch covering letter can be viewed as either essential or totally unnecessary and we've no way of knowing which is the case.

Before the advent of the personal computer, say, twenty years ago, the content of your CV could almost have been carved in stone. Once composed, it would have rarely changed, regardless of where it was being sent.

This was because much more emphasis used to be put on the covering letter, which was then de rigueur. Your CV would simply have described your career to date in fairly neutral terms. Your covering letter was supposed to map out why you were the perfect person to fill the vacancy.

So, in effect, the accompanying letter was the 'one-to-one marketing document' that the CV has now become. But because we now adapt and alter our CVs virtually every time we send them out to potential employers, a huge question mark hangs over the covering letter. In terms of how the covering letter is regarded nowadays, there are two distinct camps in the recruiters' world.

In one camp are those recruiters who bin accompanying letters on sight because they expect applicants to make their case entirely through their CV. They assume that people will produce a customised CV and that therefore an accompanying letter is simply a lingering nod to a piece of outmoded social etiquette. Spend forty minutes carefully crafting a bespoke letter in these cases and it'll be a waste of time as its unlikely to make any difference to the recruiter's decision about whether or not you deserve an interview.

In the second camp, there are just as many recruiters who expect to see a covering letter that sets out a full and convincing argument why the writer should be pencilled in for an interview. In these cases, the absence of a covering letter would do your cause real harm.

The catch is that we rarely know which of these two camps we're likely to be dealing with when popping our details in the post. The safest bet for the prudent job-hunter is to therefore write a covering letter on the basis that it just might make a difference.

Your covering letter should obviously be typed, regardless of how neat your handwriting is. No recruiter I know will read a handwritten letter in preference to one that's typed. And regarding the content of a covering letter, the structure can be broken down into three sections:

Make the connection
Explain why you're writing at this particular time. If it's in response to an advertisement, identify where you saw the ad and when it appeared (this can help recruiters to identify which papers or magazines bring in the best response). If your approach is speculative, still try to give a compelling reason why you're interested in that particular company.
Make your pitch
Describe what you can offer the company. Try to make sure that every point you make is likely to be relevant to their needs.
Describe what's coming next
Take control of the process by saying what you want to happen next. Perhaps say something like, 'I'll call you in a week's time to see if there might be value in our meeting up' or a less pushy 'I look forward to hearing from you.' Follow up with a telephone call if you've heard nothing after ten days or so.


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