What Is the Purpose of a Cover Letter?

Video Transcript

"Cover letter is a one-piece of lots of documents or meetings that you will have with an interviewer or a potential hiring manager. A cover letter just starts it off. A cover letter essentially is an invitation for a hiring manager or someone in an organization that you wish to work in to get to your resume or to read your resume. You are, in a sense, giving them a snapshot of what is in your resume, which will be a more descriptive version of yourself and your capabilities and your accomplishments. So essentially, a cover letter is going to sort of provide an invitation to them to take a look at that and to pursue you as a potential candidate. A cover letter, obviously, there's...well, there are some obvious pieces of information that are going to be included in a...in a cover letter. Your contact information -- not all of it, but again, because a cover letter is a snapshot of the resume and you don't want to detail everything out. But you want to have the specific name and contact information for the hiring manager of the position that you're...that you're seeking and you want to address the letter to them. And essentially, what you're...what you want to accomplish is you want to tell them a little bit about why you're interested in the...this position, beginning with how you heard about the position, obviously naming the position that you're looking for so everyone's clear. And then...and then dive into just a real brief section on why you would be a good candidate. And then you want to mention that you have also included a resume because usually resumes do follow cover letters. Include that, and then you want to sort of solicit a response -- that's one of the most important parts -- asking for an interview essentially because that's what you eventually want to get to. And obviously, you want to close it in a professional business manner -- "Sincerely" -- and sign your name."