Being com­pet­i­tive as a can­di­date in today’s still extra tight job mar­ket requires extra atten­tion to detail to stand out in the crowd. Fewer jobs and more can­di­dates mean Recruiters and Hir­ing Man­agers are review­ing more resumes today than they have in a very long time. One way to bring your resume to the top of the stack is through a well con­structed cover let­ter attached to your resume or application.

Cover let­ters are a dis­ap­pear­ing art, we rarely see any­more. How­ever, when they are well writ­ten they can pro­vide an con­cisely crafted snap­shot of you and tell a story that can’t pos­si­bly be told in your resume.

Through a cover let­ter you can explain why you are apply­ing to a job from out of state, why you are inter­ested in a posi­tion that doesn’t align with your past work expe­ri­ence, gaps in employ­ment and addi­tional accom­plish­ments that would make you a top can­di­date. You can also give exam­ples of your strong work ethic, write why you would like to work for the com­pany and pro­vide many other pieces of crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion about you that will entice the Recruiter to put your resume on top of the stack and not in the cir­cu­lar file. 

To make your cover let­ter stand out and get you the atten­tion it deserves, take the time to research the name of the Recruiter or Hir­ing Man­ager and write the let­ter to that per­son. Salu­ta­tions of “Dear Hir­ing Man­ager” will be a big turn-off and likely dis­carded. The same applies to canned let­ters that do not specif­i­cally address each par­tic­u­lar posi­tion you are apply­ing to.

I have received canned let­ters for posi­tions which do not exist in the com­pany I was recruit­ing for. Some have been com­pelling state­ments of why the indi­vid­ual was apply­ing for that posi­tion. To me they were com­pelling rea­sons to not call the can­di­date. Why would I call some­one who des­per­ately seeks a posi­tion as a Med­ical Coder if com­pany does not employ Med­ical Coders?

There is no doubt that tak­ing the time to write per­son­al­ized, tar­geted cover let­ters is time con­sum­ing. Remem­ber­ing that you are “work­ing” to find a job should moti­vate you to cre­ate a one page spell-checked, pol­ished intro­duc­tion to who you are, why you want the job and why you are the right candidate.

Isn’t it time to pick up the phone, call the recep­tion­ist to ask the name of the Recruiter and get writing?