How Does a Cover Letter Help Your Job Chances?

The Initial Impression

Written to grab attention, spark curiosity, stimulate interest, stress enthusiasm, demonstrate capabilities and, ideally, secure an interview, a cover letter serves as your first impression to a potential employer. As such, your cover letter should present the best reflection of you.

Most of us would love to avoid the dreadful tasks of constructing a dynamic cover letter. However, employers no longer view cover letters as a mild formality. In recent years, employers scrutinize cover letters for engaging wit, superior communication abilities, stellar performance capabilities, energized enthusiasm and endless potential. If you have done a superb job conveying all of this and captivated the employer, then your chance at being considered for the position exponentially escalates.

Never underestimate the power of persuasion in a cover letter. Without being too dramatic and overdone, a cover letter should compel an employer to discover more about you whether through examining the remaining job application materials or through an interview. Either way, a cover letter should always significantly enhance your odds at being considered for a job.

A Powerful Cover Letter Works Wonders

A cover letter is your advertisement to a perspective employer. Captivating cover letters, which clarify your capabilities in terms of company benefits, drastically increase the likelihood of securing an interview.

Hindering Your Chances Through Sloppiness

As much as a powerful cover letter can boost your chances of securing a new job, a sloppy, poorly written cover letter can prove just as disastrous. Dull and carelessly written cover letters communicate you have little professional pride, possess an inability to sufficiently communicate, lack determination and are lazy. Submitting an unimpressive cover letter may very well throw your candidacy for a position in the trash bin.

Losing the Opportunity Before Securing the Interview

Not targeting your cover letter to a specific person, grammatical errors, lacking emotion and substance, rehashing your resume, leaving the ball in the employer's court, providing a narrative of your life or career, leading with weaknesses and using wimpy language within your cover letter are all ways to guarantee you won't have an interview.

Misspelling the employer's name is bad enough but addressing the cover letter to "Sir or Madam" or "To Whom It May Concern" is job-opportunity suicide. An abstract greeting clearly indicates you are too lazy to actually look up the hiring manager's name.

Leaving the ball in the employer's court means you have left it up to them to contact you about an interview. If you want the job, actively go after it. A strong concluding paragraph such as "Again, I'd like to express my enthusiasm and genuine desire to work with such a reputable company as yours. I will contact you next week to arrange for an interview. Should you require any additional information, I can be contacted at the phone number above" confirms your enthusiasm and desire for the position.

Using wimpy language like "I believe" and "I feel" can hinder your chances as well. If you are going to use qualifier words at least use strong words like "I am confident" or don't use them at all.

Never open a cover letter with a statement like: Though I have no previous working experience in a marketing firm, my excellent organizational skills, dedication and enthusiasm will more than make up for my lack of work experience. Don't highlight weaknesses. Focus on strengths.

Securing an Opportunity

The Society for Human Resource Management conducted a study of nearly 600 employment professionals regarding cover letters. An astounding 76 percent of these professionals indicated they would completely eliminate a candidate from any further hiring considerations solely based upon the quality of his cover letter alone. Given this statistic, it seems quite likely that a cover letter can make or break your job opportunities or at least the possibility of being further considered before your resume has even been glanced at. Make your cover letter work for you in securing job opportunities.