{"id":20815,"date":"2014-06-18T10:30:17","date_gmt":"2014-06-18T15:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=20815"},"modified":"2014-06-18T10:29:50","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T15:29:50","slug":"4-steps-to-impress-in-your-cover-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=20815","title":{"rendered":"4 Steps to Impress in Your Cover Letters"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Scottie Kapel, former Head Editor, INALJ Oregon
\n<\/a>previously published 5\/1\/13
\n<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

4 Steps to Impress in Your Cover Letters<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

\"scottieRemember last month when I wrote on and on about how difficult resume writing can be<\/a>? Well, I lied. Writing a resume is nothing in comparison to writing a cover letter. That said, writing a cover letter provides you with the opportunity to unpack some of those accomplishments that seem a little pale on your resume. There are countless resources available to help you write a brilliant cover letter — a quick Google search will inundate you with information, tips, and taboos. While these are all valuable, eventually you\u2019re going to have to figure out on your own what skills and experiences warrant greater discussion. Here are a few tips to help you along the way:<\/p>\n

1. Know your audience!<\/b><\/p>\n

Nothing reeks of impersonality and weak information gathering skills than a \u201cTo whom it may concern.\u201d If a contact name is not provided in the listing, do your best to figure out who will be reviewing your resume, whether that means emailing the institution or making a quick call. What if the name is totally gender-neutral, as mine is? I can\u2019t tell you how many phone calls I\u2019ve received assuming that I am a \u201cMr.\u201d simply because my name is Scottie. I don\u2019t take offense to the mistake, but it does get old. The last thing you want to do is exasperate your potential interviewer within the first ten seconds of her experience with you. I\u2019ve looked up what to do in this scenario, and I\u2019ve seen a couple of votes for using both the first and last name together. To me \u201cDear Pat Jones\u201d is too reminiscent of a sweepstakes letter — this greeting should be immediately followed by an excited announcement that the recipient has won $1,000,000! If you\u2019re not giving the person reading your letter riches beyond their wildest dreams (or at the very least a great deal on a 2 year subscription to Us Weekly<\/i>), a more generic \u201cDear Hiring Manager\u201d or \u201cDear Hiring Committee\u201d is a safer choice.<\/p>\n

2. Name drop, but sincerely.<\/b><\/p>\n

Do you have a friend or acquaintance who works at the institution to which you\u2019re applying? Have they clued you in to the position? Refer to them in your cover letter. A simple, \u201cJohn Doe, who I know from our time volunteering together at the Jacksonville Public Library, informed me of this position as he thought it would be a perfect match for my skills and experiences.\u201d However, there is a caveat to this. Know the person whose name you\u2019re dropping, and by that I mean know them in the sense of the role as an employee. Are they constantly complaining to you about their coworkers or supervisors? Maybe pass on including any mention of your acquaintance. At their last dinner party did they proudly show off their curio case full of filched office supplies? Again, better to distance yourself professionally. On the flip side, do they receive promotions, do they have a respected and visible web-presence, did they just last week save a kitten from a tree that was on fire? By all means, name drop away! Just make sure before doing so that you\u2019ve asked said person\u2019s permission and that you\u2019re confident that he or she will only sing your praises.<\/p>\n

3. Align your passions with the position.<\/b><\/p>\n

Obviously you want the job or else you wouldn\u2019t be applying for it, but what makes you stand out as a natural for the position more so than other candidates? If you\u2019re applying for the catalog librarian position in a herpetology library and you used to have a secret collection of pet snakes that you hid from your mother and know the Latin name for every type of lizard, mention it in your letter. Not only might you get a laugh out of the hiring manager (score!), but moreover, at the very minimum they\u2019ll certainly remember your letter. The same goes if you have a special interest in the history of an area and you\u2019re applying for a job as an archivist at the local historical society. Let it be known that you\u2019re knowledgeable about the area and its inhabitants.<\/p>\n

4. Read, reread, and rereread!<\/b><\/p>\n

If you have a stock cover letter that you tailor to each institution, good for you! Way to make efficient use of your time! But before you send it off, double-, triple-, quadruple-check that you\u2019ve changed any pertinent details. If you\u2019re applying for a position as an archivist for the Springfield Historical Society, make sure you remove any mention of Shelbyville Historical Society. This is one of those mistakes you\u2019ll realize the very second you submit your application, and immediate waves of panic will set in. At this point, there\u2019s not much you can do, so to avoid those panic sweats altogether, take twenty minutes before you think you\u2019re ready to submit your application materials and read everything over, step away, and come back and reread to make sure that you\u2019ve caught every last mention of any other institution.<\/p>\n

Writing a cover letter is a deeply individual task. While there are certain aspects of cover letters that are universal, the way they are presented and the supporting evidence given will differ from applicant to applicant. If you\u2019re concerned that your resume doesn\u2019t do your personality and experience justice, make the most of your cover letter by teasing this evidence out with clear, powerful examples. You want to stand out in your cover letter, but make sure you\u2019re not doing so at the expense of conveying the necessary information. With a great cover letter, you bring your resume to life and put a personality to an otherwise impersonal stage of the hiring process. If you get hiring managers to take a personal interest in you before you\u2019ve even met with them, then you are already ahead of the game!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Scottie Kapel, former Head Editor, INALJ Oregon previously published 5\/1\/13 4 Steps to Impress in Your Cover Letters Remember last month when I wrote on and on about how difficult resume writing can be? Well, I lied. Writing a resume is nothing in comparison to writing a cover letter. That said, writing a cover…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,77,78,3601,3987],"class_list":["post-20815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-cover-letter","tag-cover-letters","tag-inalj-oregon","tag-scottie-kapel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/scottie-k.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-5pJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}