If you were a hiring manager and read your cover letter, would you want to interview you? Read on for my secrets to engaging cover letters guaranteed to get you noticed! Most people assume that cover letters aren’t read which means they either don’t include one, they write a boring monotonous one or they write it for the wrong audience. Let me tell you a secret, you are right but also oh so wrong. Recruiters most of the time do not read cover letters – we just do not have the time. We receive on average 250 applicants per job posting (I’ve had up to 1000 before!) so we need to focus on the hard skills – do you have what it takes to do the job. BUT, and this is a big but, a lot of hiring managers read the cover letter. They typically only see the top 10-25 candidates and they not only want to see if you could do the job but also do they think you have what it takes to be a member of their team. So if you are going to take the time to write a cover letter make it engaging and dynamic! And even if the hiring manager doesn’t read it, just having one shows that you are willing to go above and beyond for this job so even for those industries where the likelihood of it being read is slim, I still recommend sending one in. It doesn’t hurt to spend an extra 10-15 minutes on a job you really want does it?
Most cover letters that I have read throughout my 15 years of experience are boring and monotonous that is essentially a sentence based regurgitation of the candidate’s resume. I don’t learn anything new about the individual. When I write cover letters for my clients I have two main focuses: get their personality in it and summarize who they are and what they bring. Today I am going to share with you the ideal format of the cover letter with the secrets of how to get a hiring manager really excited to meet with you. First Paragraph: To start, the cover letter should be addressed to someone! Look at the posting, is there any instruction or a name included? If so, use that. If not, we want to address it to the Hiring Manager – do some digging and LinkedIn research to try and find out who that is! It also wouldn’t hurt to engage with them some way. This paragraph’s focus is on Who You Are and Why You Are Applying. It is your hook, we want the reader (the hiring manager) to be intrigued with you and looking forward to reading more. This should be tailored to their needs as outlined in the job posting but you can lean on work you have already done in your Modern Resume and your LinkedIn profile by examining your resume objective, your LinkedIn Headline and Summary which all comes from your personal brand as developed through my free email course, the Job Search Roadmap. Some things that this paragraph must include are:
Second Paragraph: The focus on this paragraph is Why this Job and Company and How you would benefit. This is a great place to compliment the company, ideally the hiring manager if you can. Talk about their reputation, what they have done right, some recent wins or future projects. Show that you have done your work and that this isn’t just some throw away job application for you. Then move into what you bring to the table, how you would benefit the company, team and hiring manager in this role. There are a few things you can include in this section. You can talk about your story, or your call to action to this career and job. I always include a summary of how a client can benefit instead of specifics. This is done by taking a look at your accomplishments and seeing a common thread or pattern. For example, do you have a history of analyzing data, noticing areas for improvement and coming up with new processes that makes a team more efficient or productive? If so, write that! This paragraph could/should include are:
Third Paragraph Then move into some specific examples of accomplishments and results that you want to highlight. Ideally these will provide examples to the benefits you listed above. This can be formatted in a three different ways (I use all three depending on who my client is and what they are applying for).
My typical go to is the Bullet Points, what I like about it is that if someone is going to skim over your cover letter they will probably read your opening sentence and your bullet points and the closing sentence so by having the accomplishments that you are most proud of and of great relevance to the hiring manager highlighted then they will definitely pick those up. I recommend three accomplishments with an added Education bullet point if the job, company and/or industry value education, training and certifications. I lean on the table format for roles that are heavily skilled based – IT, Engineering, etc. Roles that require a lot of technology. Especially since hiring managers in these industries don’t typically read cover letters and if they do then chances are they are skimming it, so having a table making it clear that you are a perfect fit in terms of your technical skill set is key. I use the paragraph format sparingly. I do love to use it when writing is a key part of a job since the cover letter is a great place to showcase your writing ability. It also works for roles where you may not have accomplishments that can be backed up by hard data. Third Paragraph summary:
Closing Paragraph This is your lasting impression, keep it short and sweet with about two sentences. Open with the three reasons why they need you on their team. Close with a call to action – meeting with them, interviewing for the job, discussing your fit – be confident! Then sign off with your name. Must haves for the closing paragraph:
Showcase You! The last thing I want you to do is go through your cover letter – is it conversational and does it showcase your personality? Pick word choices and sentence structure that gets a little bit of you in there. We want the Hiring Manager to finish reading this knowing three things
So now you have the knowledge of how to write a great cover letter, well you need a great resume to go with it don’t you? Download my resume checklist to help guide you writing one and if you need more register for The Ultimate Resume Workshop to learn all the ins and outs to writing a resume that gets you noticed!
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Going by the statistics alone, chances are you have not been chosen for an interview that you should have been, meaning you have missed out on an opportunity. What do I mean by that? Well 72% of resumes submitted to jobs are read by an Application Tracking System and of those 75% are immediately disqualified, even if a person has the right experience! To me, as a career coach and resume writer, those stats are just downright scary. To a job searcher you may feel like it is a losing battle and will either stay put in a boring job or settle for any old offer because you think that dream job is out of reach. I don’t want that and you don’t want that, so I did the work and the research. I’ve listened to podcasts, read countless articles, reached out to Talent Acquisition friends to find out what you need to do to optimize your resume and your LinkedIn profile in order to get noticed! First off, what is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), well it is a computer system that reviews and compares your resume (and sometimes LinkedIn) to the job description and gives you a grade based on how you match up. Then the candidates are ranked and a list is created that is sent over to the recruiter who then scans through the ones that scored the highest, on average only about 25% of the total number of applicants. To start off, I wanted to caution against coming up with some sort of wacky workaround just to get seen. At the end of the day a person will eventually review your resume. Some scams I’ve seen are filling white spaces on your resume with keywords in white so that they aren’t seen by a person but will be picked up by the ATS, sneaking keywords in (like learning to code in Java) and filling out your experience with keywords and nothing else. The thing is though, you still won’t get interviewed if you aren’t a qualified match for the job whether the ATS puts you through or not! So I sorted through all my research and have compiled a list of how to optimize your resume and LinkedIn profiles. Make sure you read to the end, there is some key information at the bottom of each section. How to Optimize Your Resume
How To Optimize LinkedIn So I know a lot of people optimize LinkedIn for recruiters and some have started to optimize for ATS but there are some things I’ve discovered in my research in talking with my peers within large organizations that I haven’t seen or heard about in my research. I’ll start with the basics of what you need to do with your profile and then go into the new findings.
After you have done the above, do a search. Plug in the keywords and job title of the role you applied for. Narrow down on location. And see where you land. If you land on the 3rd or later page, then you have work to do. The goal is to end up on the first or second page. Okay, you have done all the hard work on filling your resume and LinkedIn with relevant information and keywords and you still didn’t get the call. Well there could be another reason. A new function on some of the Application Tracking Systems is to scan your connections and your engagement. I know what you are thinking – what?! I know I thought that too. The reason for this is to establish how well connected you are within the industry. They want to see a decent number of connections and they want to see a good amount of connections within the industry. They also want to see how engaged you are within the industry, so are you liking or commenting on relevant posts and are you posting content/status updates relevant to the industry. Now I’m not suggesting you go out there and engage and connect with everyone within any industry for every job you have applied to. If you have completed my 5 day email course then you will know that I’m a big believer in focusing your work where it matters. So if there is a specific company within a specific industry (or even just a specific industry) that really excites you start there. Also, through my course, you know that I am also a big believer of networking and leveraging LinkedIn for that purpose. So by using LinkedIn to reach out to people within a specific industry and then engaging on their shares/updates and posts or commenting on articles they have also commented on, not only are you increasing your network as it looks to the ATS but you are creating valuable connections that will help lead the way to a fulfilling career! I hope those tips help. Let me know – engage on my Facebook page or through LinkedIn. If you want to sign up for my free email course you can do so below or my clicking here. And if you liked this article and want to get them straight to your inbox, then please sign up for my newsletter (just sent once a week). Are you still clinging to the old fashioned resume rules? Read on as I rewrite the olden days rules to fit this modern world of job hunting! I remember when I first learned to write a resume there were a few "rules" I was taught that I must adhere to in order to secure that interview - but I can tell you after screening tens of thousands of resumes over the past 15 years that many of those "rules" are completely false. And the worst thing is that I still see them recommended all the time now. I want to use the experience I’ve gained plus the knowledge gained from industry professionals to reframe these old fashioned rules to fit into our modern day. 1. Resume Length The standard for so long now is 1-2 pages, but that standard was created back in the day when a recruiter or hiring manager had to go through paper resumes. But now? Most resumes are only looked at online so scrolling through the pages is nothing. That's not to say you should submit a 10 page resume if you are a new grad! But it does give you a little more flexibility. I think of it in terms of level of career. If you are new to your career then stick to that 1-2 pages, if you are experienced you can go up to 2-3 pages, and if you are an executive or seasoned professional than 3-5 pages is completely acceptable and in fact would be preferred. The key here is to make sure the resume gives a good picture of who you are and how you match the job requirements - you don’t want it to be too short (or too long) where that message is lost. 2. Need a strong "Objective" statement Now I'm not opposed to the objective statement, but 80% of hiring managers or recruiters do no read the objective or professional statement, me included. When I’m advising clients I advise them to include a shot succinct and tailored objective statement giving an overview of who they are as a professional. What I like about the objective is it gives the resume writer a focus to grow upon. To be honest thought, the main reason I like it? It isn't for the content but more for the layout and look of the resume! The key here is to include one that makes sense for who you are and what job you are applying to but don’t spend more than a minute or two on it! 3. Resume must be black and white. This is another rule from the old fashioned job search era. But now, a little bit of colour goes a long way in getting your resume noticed, especially if the role is creative or there is anything in the posting about looking for innovative, thinking outside of the box, or creative problem solving. There are a couple of ways I've seen color used right - in the formatting (blue lines, coloured headers) or in the content (name, position titles, company titles in colour). The key is to use the colour sparingly and in an intentional way to ensure it, and therefore you, will really pop! 4. Two Resume Types - Reverse Chronological or Skills Based/Functional There is only one choice - the reverse chronological. I have a strong dislike for the Skills Based/Functional and toss it aside when one comes across my desk - a sentiment shared by many hiring managers and recruiters. We typically spend 10 seconds for an initial review of a resume looking at the following:
The key here is simple, use the reverse chronological resume format! If you have gaps of employment, don’t worry. If you work experience doesn’t contain your relevant experience, there are other ways around that (posts for another day!) 5. Your Resume gets you the Interview Yes, in some cases you resume alone does get you the interview. But in this modern age of job hunting chances are there are some other factors at play. A lot of hiring managers and recruiters check out your social media accounts. So please check your Facebook - what is the privacy, do you have a "professional" profile pic and cover photo (make sure they are appropriate, something you be comfortable with your grandmother seeing!), same with your Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat feeds. If you have a lot of inappropriate posts then make your feeds private. Also update that LinkedIn! Include a really nice photograph of yourself, just yourself, no one else. Most importantly, make sure it lines up with your resume! I have gotten a resume that fit exactly what I was looking for then went to their LinkedIn only to find a completely different story, that raised a major red flag and I questioned their honesty. Needless to say those people do not get the interview. Don't forget the leg work you did before applying, search LinkedIn to see who you may think the hiring manager is and if they are in your network maybe have someone introduce you to them. If this is a targeted company you have been interested in then I hope you have already made some contacts with the hiring managers so reach back out with a separate email to your application with your resume reminding them on your initial conversation. In these cases it is your networking that gets you the job interview! The key here is to take your job search seriously. When clients and I work together to develop their job search strategy, I make sure to include the social media updates and the many different forms of networking. I encourage you to do the same, that leg work goes a long way in securing you those coveted interviews! Like my Facebook Page to get alerts on any new articles and daily inspiration! |
AuthorSara Curto helps people find a career they love by teaching them a new way to job search. The Secrets to finding a job you loveClick HERE to watch
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