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The presentation of your cover letter is as important as the information. Because readers hope to get a sense of you as an individual, you should work to make your letter sound professional, confident, and concerned with the prospective employer's needs.
Writing like a professional assumes that your letter contains no grammatical, spelling, or typographical errors. Job applicants are frequently "deselected" because of such mistakes: prospective employers want employees who write well; they also assume that if you make careless errors when applying for jobs, you'll make them on the job.
Adapt a formal tone to promote yourself as a professional.
Use technical terminology appropriate for the position you seek. Frequently, you can use the job listing or advertisement to determine the terminology that is appropriate.
Try to downplay "I" and "me" and emphasize "you" instead. When possible, bury "I's," "me's," and
"my's"in the center of your sentences. Make your accomplishments, skills, and background the subjects of your sentences, and emphasize what these can contribute to your reader's organization, as the following paragraph shows:
Another experience which could be readily adapted to the Resource Center is my work as counselor during the past two summers for boys and girls ages 11 to 14 at a United Methodist junior high camp.
This rewarding experience involved skills such as creativity, leadership, listening, and one-to-one and group communication. Although children in this age level are quite different from those in the nursery school group, I found once again that treating the campers with respect and care fostered cooperation and growth.??
This strategy is challenging -- particularly if you're trying to vary your sentence structure so it's not repetitive. But letters in which most sentences start with "I" or "My" sound very self-centered, not exactly the image of self most job applicants want to portray.
Use concrete, specific language so that readers get a good sense of what you've done and who you are. This means using strong, active verbs to describe what you've accomplished. Some active verbs commonly used in resumes and cover letters appear in this list:
adapted
administered
advertised
advised
aided
analyzed
answered
applied
arranged
assessed
assigned
audited
collaborated
completed
communicated
compiled
conducted
coordinated
corrected
counseled
created
delegated
designed
determined
developed
directed
edited
employed
established
evaluated
expanded
guided
headed
hired
identified
implemented
improved
increased
initiated
introduced
led
managed
negotiated
operated
ordered
organized
originated
oversaw
planned
prepared
produced
programmed
raised
rated
recruited
regulated
researched
revised
scheduled
served
settled
sold
solved
started
supervised
systematized
taught
trained
wrote
When you have finished writing, reread your letter to check for tone. Make sure that you sound confident rather than cocky or unsure of yourself. Also, as you read, try to imagine what sort of personality readers will see in your letter, and revise until your language matches the image you want to project.
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