As a member of Jobscan’s Insight Leaders Network, on a weekly basis 3 questions pop into my inbox for potential comment. Last week I responded to the question regarding people’s most common mistakes when writing cover letters, and how can they be avoided.
The irony is most people don’t even bother to write a cover letter. I believe that is a missed opportunity.
As a former Fortune 500 hiring manager, receiving a cover letter made a positive impression when a candidate profoundly stated their case to be hired. On Friday I was speaking with an IBM executive about his experience in hiring and receiving cover letters. The answer was, believe it or not, never in the past decade.
Wow!
Think about it. If you received 100 resumes for a position beyond the basics of academics and skills, what would stand out for you regarding potential employees? Focus, interest, conviction, and passion will shine through.
Attaching a cover letter is one thing, but it’s essential to avoid format and content gotchas that detract from your candidacy.
Eight Common Mistakes
- Avoid Headers & Footers: Here is a trick about ATS (applicant tracking system) software—it will not read anything that appears in your header or footer. In turn, I create the cover letter masthead within the body of the Word document for my client’s name, city, state, phone, email, and LinkedIn URL. Due to industry HR privacy concerns, your numbered street address should not appear.
- Check Your Spelling: For grammar, proofreading, and editing, I pay a subscription fee for the Grammarly app, although they offer a free and less robust option. The National Résumé Writers’ Association (NRWA) guide adheres to the grammar and punctuation standards in The Greg Reference Manual and Webster’s Dictionary—the same dictionary my mother bought me at 11 years old.
- No Graphics: Some people want their resume to pop with graphics. ATS can’t read text within illustrations, so don’t include charts unless you plan to send it directly to a hiring manager.
- Fonts Matter: The NRWA standard calls for sans serif fonts such as Arial or Calibri with a minimum 10-size font and using only 1-2 colors, with black being the selection for your text. Sans serif fonts are popular for legibility and take up less real estate on your 8″x 11″ page, so you can include more text.
- Check Your Margins: Resumes come across my computer with tiny margins when clients attempt to dump their career junk drawer into 2-3 pages. My cover letter margin standard is 1-inch left/right and top/bottom, while the NCRW guide allows ½-inch wide.
- No “Dear Sir”: As a hiring manager, if I were to see “To Whom It Might Concern,” it would frankly concern me. If not readily apparent in a job posting who the recruiter or hiring manager is, then search with keywords in LinkedIn for the potential person. For example, I have clients applying for executive director roles. I recommend going to the company’s website to determine who the VP, CTO, or CIO is and then addressing the cover letter to them. It shows you researched your next potential boss, even if you might be a little askew.
- Address Unknown: Since cover letters are now attached electronically rather than mailed via the U.S. Postal Service, I’ve seen addresses eliminated. I suggest using the corporate headquarters address or the local office if you apply for a regional role. Once again, it shows you cared enough to do research.
- It’s Not Just About You: It’s easy to show enthusiasm for a role. Provide a sentence in your cover letter regarding what resonates with you about the company’s culture, mission, or product. The subsequent sentence should outline what company accomplishments impress you, such as market share, innovation, or industry disruption. This section shows your research investment, understanding their big picture, and why you will align to drive results.
Best to you in your job search!
