A cover letter is a document that provides additional information on your skills and experiences. It is sent to the employer along with your resume. This letter includes about your basic information, your purpose for writing, highlights your experiences or skills, and reflect your zeal to be in the company and an interest to meet personally with the employers.
Effective cover letter explains the reasons for your interest in the organization and the company. You should also remember that it must not only reflect you but also your potentiality to do the job they offer.
Furthermore, you must not forget to highlight the crucial points that you have been included in your resume that promotes your professional experience. Since a cover letter plays a major role in the job search, special attention should be given to its contents. Minor mistakes may lead to rejection of your letter. Let’s have a look at some of the most common mistakes people perform while writing a cover letter;
5 Critical Mistakes in Cover Letter Writing
1. Your Foundation
The way you start your letter makes 90% of the impression. Start with something interesting. Don’t start with such lines like “I am an Office coordinator with 5 years of experience”, it isn’t much appealing. Each of your sentences must contain a target job title and career – outlining description. Some people start their cover letter with general greeting and even misspell some words like the name of the company or person.
While writing your cover letter you must be very much careful from the beginning and pay attention to the words you use and spellings. Include your email id and address your cover letter to the context of the job. Depict the true purpose of your writing rather than writing unnecessary greetings. Make persuasive arguments why your skills, experience and education truly match the job and why you are the correct candidate.
2. Exaggerating Self
Employers love to hear about their company. Tell the employer what the company can do to you rather than emphasizing on what you can do for the company. Including how you can increase the profit of the company is also important as some companies are very much profit oriented.
Also try to avoid sentences that starts from “I”. While you want to make sure your skills and abilities to be known by the prospective employer, starting every single sentence with “I am”, “I can do…” etc., is boring to read and won't be much effective. You can make it effective by using different styles to project yourself and the company. Avoid repetition of the words, sentence and phrase as far as possible.
3. Unrelated Job Skills
Since cover letters are generally only four paragraphs long, it must be précised and direct to the reader. Only add those skills or experiences that are applicable to the related field. Any other information not related weakens your application. Consider these cover letter tips while you write. Always remember what the employer is seeking for whenever you write. It’s better not to mention your weaknesses or lack of experience in your cover letter. Focus on the skills you have and experiences related to the job requirement.
4. Insufficient Information
There are many candidates who often forget to include all the contact details on their cover page or assume that the resume will have these details. However, there are possibilities for the employers to not to read the resume or separate the cover letter your resume. Therefore, you need to make sure to include all the details in the cover letter.
Start your cover letter including your name, address, email address, and other required information. This should appear on the top right hand side of the page. Including unrelated skills and experiences and excluding related information will surely hamper in your job selection. Making your objective clear is also very much important information that must be included in the cover letter. Nevertheless, those objectives should strictly align with the company’s objectives.
5. Inappropriate Conclusion
The frequent mistake done by many people is writing to call them back if they might turn out to be the right candidate or in the convenience of the employer. This is the basic mistake which is needed to be avoided. You must always try to include those qualities and skills that are appropriate for the job. As the final lines are the last chance for you to prove you are the perfect employee they are in search for.
Don’t repeat the same information, add more if you can or you can twist the same lines or information in different ways. You can also try to be a bit personal or funny, but you need to match the overall tone with your cover letter.
Having a cover letter which can impress the employers plays a very important role in getting a job. Try to avoid the above mistakes and you can find the difference. For more career tips click here.
