How to Address Missing Qualifications in a Cover Letter
For some positions, qualifications are cut-and-dry with no wiggle room. For others, however, missing qualifications don’t necessarily preclude you from the job in question. If you are seeking a position for which you technically lack the qualifications, but you feel your previous experience makes you an ideal candidate, it may be worth your effort to submit your resume along with a carefully crafted cover letter. By outlining the ways in which you are perfect for this job, despite your missing qualifications, you may be able to secure a position for which you aren’t technically ideal.
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Instructions
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Introduce your experience, highlighting the most directly applicable. Write a short paragraph in which you state who you are and give a very brief run down of your information.
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Focus on skills. If you lack the technical qualifications but possess the skills the committee may be seeking, make this your focus. List the specific skills that you possess that are necessary for the position. Spend no more than one sentence discussing each skill and explaining how you possess that ability.
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Discuss any training you are in the process of receiving. If you are in the middle of obtaining the qualifications they seek, this could have an impact on their willingness to hire you. Make specific mention of this fact, providing some key details, such as what certification you will hold once you finish the training as well as how much longer you have until you are done.
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Invite the reader to call you. Your ultimate goal is for the hiring committee to call you and arrange an interview. As you draw your letter to a close, invite them to take this next step. Tell them, for example, “I am eager to speak to you more about what I can do for your company and hope I hear from you soon.” With a simple phrase like this, you can make it clear that serving the company is your ultimate goal, and likely make yourself a more desirable candidate.
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Remain concise and make your point quickly. While you may feel the urge to continue to ramble on about how ideal you are for the job in question, doing so could actually hurt your chances of securing it. The individual tasked with reading these cover letters may not have an abundance of time to do so. If you ramble on, you may end up having your resume tossed.
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