Perhaps an employer is interested in how you think. How you highlight and express your skills and talents. An elaborate cover letter acts as a bridge between what an employer is looking for and your skill set.
In a cover letter, you need to address the keywords in the job description. It is impossible to have a single cover letter to apply for all jobs these days. Instead, you should tailor a letter to show the skills that are applicable to the job you are applying for, just as you do when customizing your resume to fit a different job.
You need to be selective and target an audience by including keywords and phrases that match what an employer is looking for. Say, for example, you were applying for jobs in auditing, accounting, sales and marketing, the keywords you would focus on in your summary would have to do with financial skills and marketing experience. You wouldn’t highlight your sniper skills, even if you worked part-time as an instructor in a field you’re not applying for.
Your cover letter should target specific skills. It is not up to the employer to define who you are from your many talents to determine if you are “fit” for a position. Instead, you should select and highlight skills that demonstrate your ability to do the job and present your qualifications in a well-defined and organized cover letter.
At one point, college graduates were literally putting all of their skills into a summary and waiting for the employer to create a job for them. The trends are different today. You are expected to do the hard work of deciding what kind of job you want and present your skills in a perfectly honed cover letter and resume that focuses on what you want to do. The qualifications an employer looks for are usually written in the job description of the advertisement. While the cover letter doesn’t regurgitate all the information on your resume, it does summarize your most relevant experiences, skills, and characteristics of the job and highlights examples from your experience that support these experiences. While it is true that sometimes when you are hired for a particular job, you may find that the job is something other than the job description. However, an employer expects a resume that suits the job.
Here are some techniques for creating a variety of powerful cover letters that are tailored to unique situations. For instance:
• Develop job search skills on social media that will pay dividends for years to come. If you play your cards right! When you learn how to create animated contact letters and thank you notes to develop and maintain a positive contact list, you can take advantage of this information when looking for job opportunities. This is accomplished by joining social media online, engaging people in networking events, and creating a brilliant contact list of family members, associations, colleagues, discussion groups, supervisors, and leaders in your field.
• Discover sales and marketing secrets to speed up the time it takes to get interviews by polishing a specific summary and follow-up letter. A LinkedIn profile, for example, is a combination of a sales letter and a bio that also includes your photo.
• Adapt special situation letters to handle job gaps, omission of names, and application letters, as well as recommendation, personal statements, and job proposal letters.
• Tell your story in a carefully crafted, animated profile that can be edited to add excitement to a Google, LinkedIn, or Twitter bio, as well as many other social networking sites. The bio shows and markets your skills, knowledge and abilities to get a job or promote your products.
• On LinkedIn, for example, it is good to have recommendations from other people who have provided enthusiastic recommendations that showcase your work as a professional. Commenting on other blogs, joining and participating in groups that discuss topics related to your work is a great way to develop contacts and improve your credibility.
• As a bonus, you can start your own group to increase your reputation as an expert in your field. Create a profile highlighting your accomplishments, providing conversation topics and opinions, and asking others to contribute. Answer questions and provide your own opinions on different topics. Type the words Meet Up and the area where you live in the address bar of a search engine like Google to produce a list of groups that you can join to develop or share skills.
Strategies for Writing Exceptional Cover Letters
• Use transferable skills that can be transferred from one setting to another, such as leadership, training, communication, and conflict resolution skills.
• Match your stationery to your resume if you send it by post. You can create a format that is the same as your resume format.
• Write the name, address and zip code of the person to whom the letter is addressed. Try to find the name of the hiring manager of a contact who works in the organization you would like to work for. Do not use Dear Sir or Madam.
• Write your cover letter in 10-12 point type and keep it to four to five paragraphs.
• Do not lie or exaggerate because what you say can be discussed in your interview.
• Avoid negative and controversial information
• Don’t overuse “I” in your cover letter.
• Discuss your job-related skills, such as working with people, data, ideas, and things.