Fix Your Cover Letter Format with These Style Tips
Posted January 20, 2014 & filed under Uncategorized
Last week, I brought to light a key to cover letters that many job seekers tend to overlook: style. Because the primary focus has been on what to say in a cover letter, job seekers tend to ignore how they say it. Since you only have a small amount of precious time (usually a matter of seconds) to capture the attention of the hiring manager, you might as well make sure that you are making those seconds count.
Injecting some style into your cover letter will most certainly transform it into something hiring managers will actually want to read. In order to do so, keep in mind a couple of key points.
You don’t always have to be so uptight
If your cover letter is reading like an encyclopedic account of your life, you’re asking for a hiring manager to put you off to the side. Remember, hiring managers have to sift through dozens of these at any given time, and standing out is just as important as hitting your keywords.
While your keywords will draw the hiring manager’s eyes to a certain section of your cover letter, it is up to your writing to keep their eyes on that part of your story. Simply listing your qualifications and specs (as if you are a piece of machinery) is boring and will be replicated by every other cover letter that comes across the hinging manager’s desk. Ask yourself, “How are these qualifications specific to me?” Tell a short story as to how you implemented these in a unique way.
Not all words are created equal
In a recently released study by State University of New York at Stony Brook, a group of computer scientists set out to study the differences between the writing style within successful and not successful works of literature. They found that books using overly cliché words (such as “love”) were less successful than those that didn’t.
They also found that the less successful books also rely on verbs that explicitly describe actions and emotions (“wanted”, “took”, “promised”) while more successful books favor verbs that describe thought-processing (“recognized”, “remembered”). Put these tactics to use when telling your career story.
Where are you in all of this?
Remember that while sounding professional is important, you also don’t want to lose your voice within your writing. Hiring managers want to hire a person, not a machine, so don’t forget to inject yourself into your writing as much as possible.
By Kevin Withers
