Feature Article: Special Cover-Letter Formats Can Grab Employers' Attention
Bonus Feature: The 7 Elements of a Highly Effective Cover Letter
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
What's New on Quintessential Careers: Latest Additions
The Career Doctor: Answering Your Questions
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search
Notes from the Editor: About this Issue...
The issue of cover letters continues to put job-seekers in a quandary,
especially in the electronic age where it's not always clear whether a cover letter is
desirable and expected when you send or post your resume electronically. Our article in this
issue by Jimmy Sweeney, as well as our Q-TIPS, illustrate that cover letters are still
expected and still a way to set your self apart from other job-seekers. If you're in
an ambiguous online situation where, for example, there's no place to post your cover letter
electronically along with your resume, consider ALSO sending a resume and cover letter by postal
mail. That double-whammy often gets extra attention because so few job-seekers use this approach.
My article in this issue on special cover-letter formats explains several ways of garnering extra
attention with your cover letter.
Stuck and frustrated when it comes to writing a cover letter?
While our new quiz gauging your need for a professional resume writer (SEE ANNOUNCEMENT
BELOW) mostly targets resumes, keep in mind that many resume-writing services (including Quintessential
Resumes and Cover Letters) also provide cover-letter services.
For great job postings to which to submit your cover letter (and resume of course),
check out our
job portal.
--Katharine Hansen, Credentialed Career Master, Certified Electronic Career Coach,
and editor at
kathy@quintcareers.com
Could You Benefit from a Professional Resume Writer?
A New Quintessential Careers Quiz!
Are you thinking about engaging the services of a professional writer
for your resume, CV, cover letter, thank-you letter, or other career-marketing
correspondence? Before you take this step, consider how a professional resume writer
could benefit you.
Special Cover-Letter Formats Can Grab Employers' Attention
by Katharine Hansen
One of the challenges of getting an employer to pay attention to your
cover letter is that letters tend to look uninviting, with large
expanses of gray type, broken up only by paragraphs.
One solution, of course, is to make your letter as concise as
possible so that it doesn't look like a daunting reading project. Be
as brief as you can, and make sure your letter has a pleasing amount
of white space. Keep your paragraphs short, and include no more than
4-5 paragraphs. Cover letters sent electronically in the body of an
e-mail message should be especially brief. (See our article,
Tips for
a Dynamic Email Cover Letter).
You can also use special formats to make your letter more reader-friendly and
enticing. These formats also call attention to your qualifications
and enable you to tailor them very sharply to the requirements of the
position you're applying for.
Just like the late, great Rodney Dangerfield, the humble cover letter gets
no respect either.
Job-seekers spend so much time and energy on their resume they’ve got
nothing left to offer their poor, neglected cover letter.
Big... big mistake!
It is the well-written cover letter -- not the resume -- that can single-
handedly
land you more job interviews. The cover letter is your one chance to really
market yourself to an employer using proven marketing strategies rarely found
in the typical cover letter.
Conversely, there is only so much you can do with the traditional CV or resume.
I believe the carefully crafted cover letter is more important to your job search
success than any other written document including the resume.
Launched in Aug. 2000, career-intelligence.com, touts itself as having become "a premier destination
for working women, including small business owners."
With a philosophy of Stretch, Grow, Achieve, career-intelligence.com is designed to help women
through all phases of their professional lives. The site covers everything from self-assessment
to job transition to career development and starting a small business.
Sections include:
Assessment, containing career-planning information, exercises, and assessment tools
Transition, with information on resumes, cover letters, and interviewing tips
Management, about balancing work and family, business travel, stress management, and professional image
Tools, including career counseling/coaching, strategy sessions, and online training
Small Business Services, such as start-up, promotion, operations, technology, and resources
Media Therapy for inspiration or a good laugh
The site also offers an Ask Our Experts section and a free newsletter.
Have you read the Quint Careers Weblog (Blog)?
It consists of career and job-search news, trends,
and scoops for job-seekers, compiled by the staff
of Quintessential Careers.
The blog is a great way to stay posted on the most
recent events occurring in the career and employment fields.
Ralph writes: "I was hoping for some advice on determining a salary requirement for a Service Center
Manager for a distribution center. The duties are: Supervise two technicians, a warehouse parts puller,
and administrative worker.
I have searched but still no answer. What do you recommend since I sent the cover letter and resume, and afterwards
the request for a salary requirement follows. They are asking me to do their dirty work, right? Can you recommend
an appropriate Web site?"
Michelle writes: "I recently was let go from my position at my office due to financial reasons.
How do I start off
a cover letter letting the employer know this information in a positive manner. I just need
some advice on how to construct the first part of the cover letter and I did not see that on the Web site."
Shelly writes: "I would really appreciate if you could please send me some examples about how to ask
for a raise. I've been at my job for a year now and I am stuck on a few things. I pretty much have all
of my ducks in a row and I know I deserve the raise but I really want to make it presentable and professional.
Basically I'm looking for a jump start. Maybe I should start with a cover letter introducing my specific proposal?
What do you think?"
EmployIreland --
a great job board for job-seekers searching for jobs in Ireland, where you can
browse (by company, location, job) or search job listings (by keywords, location,
job category, employment type), as well as post your CV. Free to job-seekers.
Healthcare Job Bank -- where
healthcare professionals -- including bio-tech, pharmaceutical, and allied life sciences --
can search job listings (by job category, location, company, keywords), post
your resume, as well as create job-search agents. Also includes some career resources. Free to job-seekers.
Insurance Sales Jobs -- where both
experienced salespeople and entry-level job-seekers can look for career opportunities in insurance sales. Job-seekers can
search job listings (by insurance discipline, state, keywords), as well as post your resume. Free to job-seekers.
JustEngineers.net -- a UK-based job site
for all careers within the engineering and railway industry. Job-seekers can search job listings
(by keyword, region, career sector), as well as post your CV and register for jobs by email.
Also includes some career resources (but only with registration). Free to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, writer Joann S. Lublin reported that, according to career
coaches, an estimated 85 percent of cover letters are so flawed that senders never land an interview.
Interviewing an entrepreneur who had reviewed several hundred thousand cover letters since founding
her business in 1983, Lublin discovered that the business owner found not even 1 percent
of those letters acceptable. In response to a recent vacancy at the 150-employee firm, about 100
of the 150 job-seekers sent letters. "Two-thirds contained mistakes (including a misspelled current job title)," Lublin
reported. "Fifteen applicants addressed the female CEO as 'Dear Sir.'" Only six cover letters
specifically addressed qualifications listed in the ad, and the CEO found only three letters interesting enough
to inspire her to read the senders' resumes.
One of the "Top 5 Reasons Why Job Hunters Fail" is "not writing a cover letter,"
Robin Ryan notes in an
article in her monthly newsletter.
"Human-resources managers state that cover-letter writing is becoming a lost art," Ryan writes, "since job hunters
think they can skip this step when they apply electronically."
"A well-written cover letter has great power with employers and should always precede any resume sent. Open the letter
with a powerful first paragraph that sums up the background, key strengths, skills and accomplishments you have to offer.
Human-resource managers say that a good cover letter demonstrates your communication skills and can capture
the interview," Ryan advises.
The concept of using a cover letter to demonstrate communication
skills is reinforced in a column by Kate Wendleton and Dale Dauten.
An employer wrote to the career columnists to about his
experience in reviewing cover letters during a recent search
for technicians: "The most obvious thing that people failed to do,"
wrote the employer, "was to address the items that were called
out in the job advertisements. Applicant packages that got
the most attention were those that organized their applications
to follow the job ads."
If your school, organization, business or other
entity has a Web site, we welcome you to link to Quintessential Careers.
If you already have a link from your site, we want you to know we
appreciate it. If you don't have a link to us, please
send a request to your site's Webmaster to establish a
link to Quintessential Careers. Thanks so much!
For more details (including sample HTML copy), see our
Link to Us page.
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QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming
issues of QuintZine:
* Dining etiquette
* Career Focus Quiz
* Pre-Employment Testing
* Exude Confidence in Interviews
* Pros and Cons of Nontraditional Careers
* Nontraditional Career Paths for Men and Women
* Make Your College Application Shine
* Changing Landscape of College Admissions
* College Admissions Annual Report/Panel Discussion
* Internet Jobhunting Annual Report
* Top 5 Networking Strategies
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Book reviews
. . . and much, much more!
Don't ever want to miss another issue of QuintZine? Get a free subscription to
the email version of QuintZine by completing our
subscription form.
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