How Customize Your Cover Letter for Each Position

How Customize Your Cover Letter for Each PositionHow Customize Your Cover Letter for Each PositionHow to Tailor Your Cover Letter for Each Job ApplicationCreate a customized cover letter that introduces you as the best candidate right off the bat.Every year businesses spend billions on brand identity and ansehen. Corporate CEOs want the public to identify their business brand with little to no effort. This means spending countless hours creating marketing materials to spread the companys vision, mission and reputation online and in print. Similarly, individuals must invest in their own brand identity to be successful in their professional lives.Creating your best image and personal brand starts with the cover letter. The cover letter is the door-opener, conversation-starter and the first impression for hiring managers. When career counselors discuss the famous elevator pitch, they are referring to your cover letter. Its elend the resume, interview, or job application recruiters scrut inize first recruiters look to cover letters for a basic understanding and feel for potential candidates.Though most job seekers understand the importance of personal cover letters and spend countless hours writing creative sentences and including their most valuable assets, they rarely consider tailoring their cover letter to fit the actual job. Inserting bland material aimed at all jobs will reduce your chances of landing the interview. On the other hand, crafting a customized cover letter and connecting the dots shows the recruiter how your experience and skills are best suited for their needs.Here are a few strategies entwurfed to help tailor a customized cover letter, without overwhelming your job search.Start with relevant skills and abilities.Hiring managers look for candidates who fit their needs. Include skills on your resume that mirror the assets they are seeking in an employee. Compare your resume to the companys job description. But steer clear of bland descriptions or copy-and-pasting. Focus on your notable contributions and major attributes.As a senior marketing manager with more than 15 years experience creating campaigns and strategies to promote brand identity, I am able to ______. Some of my most recent accomplishments includeIncreased web traffic by 150% by analyzing current online trends, aligning company standards and strategies to match those trends and developing promotional products to draw traffic.Won $15 million Fortune 500 contract by promoting companys brand and product, analyzing competition and aligning sales goals to match current market trends.Awarded PRSAs Top Company Newsletter by redesigning publication, focusing on the information desired by the audience, utilizing graphics and images, including C-Level biographies and reducing overhead.Names do matter.Name dropping may be a dangerous pastime if you dont follow the rules carefully. But people do love reading their personennames in print. One area to include a name is the re cipients address and salutation. If the application or job description identifies a specific person to contact, be sure to address your cover letter and other application materials to that person. Even if the job deutsche post dhl doesnt include an actual person, try to avoid using To whom it may concern, Dear Sir or Maam or Dear Hiring Manager. These are dry and very impersonal. Call the company and ask for the contact person, do some digging on LinkedIn, or ask them how they prefer to be addressed.Mr. John DoeHiring ManagerCompany Name123 Main StreetAnytown, USA 12345Dear Mr. DoeSometimes companies have several team members working on applications. In those instances, you may not be able to address the letter to a specific person. These scenarios require a more professional technique. Address the letter to Dear Hiring Manager or the equivalent person for the company. Stay away from gender-specific language (i.e. Sir and Maam) as this is dangerous and can cause some hurt feelings. The recipients address should forego specific names and titles in this case. Use the companys name in place of an actual person.Company Name124 Main StreetAnytown, USA 12345Dear Hiring ManagerTell them you want the job and why.We all tend to focus on our accomplishments and qualities but forget the hiring process isnt about us. Recruiters are looking for people who will benefit the company. In the last paragraph not the closing paragraph a customized cover letter should tell the recruiter you want the job and why. Explain this is the company you want to work for and why. Go online and research the companys About Us web page. Gather information about the companys mission and vision statements. Learn more about their community engagement. Use this information to connect both the companys and your goals.I want to commit long-term to Company Name because both our goals align. Company Name seeks to promote self-awareness and compassion within the community through its program name. Alo ng those same lines, I haveSpeak their language.Some companies have forgone the human eyes approach to reading cover letters. They use advanced software called Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) to weed out undesirable cover letters and resumes. In other words, you have to convince the computer before gaining access to the hiring manager. Go back to the job description and carefully look for keywords. These more likely are listed in the requirements section and include hard skills unique to the position. While resisting the urge to copy-paste the exact description into your cover letter, rewrite the description in your own words, aligning it with your resume and using the keywords.As a senior-level graphic designer, my current role entails using Adobe CS (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver) to create stunning digital and print images. My colleagues have credited my ability to design appealing, trending websites and social media accounts. Additionally, I have advanced k nowledge of video editing using FinalCut.Dont forget the introductory paragraph.All cover letters start with an introduction. A well-written, customized cover letter should include the companys name, position and other identifiers included in the job description. Forego any personal greetings (i.e. I hope this letter finds you well, Hope all is well, etc.). These personal messages are sloppy and unprofessional. Focus your intro paragraph on the topic and outline of the cover letter.I am responding to your job advertisement on Monster.com. As a professional project manager, I believe I am a good fit for Company Names IT Project Manager position. As you will see, my attached resume details more than five years experience managing technology solutions for competitive companies. My history includesCreating an easy-fill template.Customizing your cover letter doesnt mean creating a new cover letter every time you apply for a job. Templates are easy to make and an important time saver. Fol low these easy steps to create your template.Create your overall design. Chose a basic design that is professional and reflects your personality. Dont use colors, off-the-wall fonts or images. Creating a cover letter design just entails designing a header (stationary head) for your cover letter. It should include your name, the job title, and contact information.Write a specific letter to start. Copy your first cover letter and start with this template. Highlight all tailored information and replace it with brackets for easy identifications. For example, As a senior-level graphic designer, my current role entails using Adobe CS (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver) to create stunning digital and print images can be changed to As a senior-level graphic designer, my current role entails tailored information. Leave all bland, generic information and soft skills as is. This is transferable to all future personal cover letters.Save as a Word template. To prevent overwriti ng past saved cover letters, save your document as a template. Once saved, every time you open the file, it creates a new cover letter, exactly as you formatted it. To save a Word file as a template click File Save As. Choose Word Template from the drop-down box and name your file. Some versions of Word have different instructions which you can find in their Help Section.Want to see how your resume stacks up? Try out our free critique today