Winning Cover Letters

Cover letters are a great opportunity to differentiate from the masses when responding to a job. If the opportunity is a “Gold” or an “A” target a great cover letter is all the more important. In a typical response to a job opening in a tight market, as most are experiencing now, a résumé must expressly address the employers’ value creating needs. The resume becomes more compelling if you can show the emerging trends for the company and its industry. Showing how your expertise will help them with the ongoing trends must be your selling point.

The cover letter must, then, go a step further and proclaim to the hiring manager, “I know you and your company.” A cover letter is, thus, a personal message to the hiring manager that is grounded in company’s pain and uncaptured opportunities. Done well, such a letter, at once, differentiates you from the pack!

How does one do that? The following suggestions are offered to create a winning cover letter for a “Gold” target; “Silver” and “Bronze” targets can be addressed commensurately:

1. Find out who the hiring manager is. Use your network, commonly available databases, or some research to find out the manager’s name and the correct spelling. If this is not available, research the company (through Hoover’s) and find the senior executive listed who might be in the chain of command of the hiring manager you are targeting and address the letter to them.
2. Research why the position is open. Also research what business cycle the company is in, and any particular challenges it is facing. For example, customer defections, product recalls, slow to market, quality problems, product costs, etc.
3. Talk to the company’s customers, suppliers, and alliances to learn more about how it does business and what perceptions those who touch the company have about it. In many cases pretending to be a buyer on the market for the company’s products and experiencing the selling process first-hand can be insightful. While on this topic, also find out about customer support, warranty, and how the company deals with outsiders (you are one here!). Translate this experience in the cover letter in an actionable way, and not as a complaint!
4. Learn how to read company financials and read the CEO’s annual/quarterly statement to glean what challenges the company is facing. Also learn how to interpret SEC filings, 10-K and 10-Q, which are available for a publicly traded company from its Website. Ask your stockbroker for investor insights.
5. Use this research to draft a letter with a Point-of-View (POV) that clearly shows how, by hiring you for the open position, you will be a change agent and make the company’s pain go away.
6. Spend time polishing this draft and reduce your letter to about a ¾ page. The message must at once be cogent, concise, and compelling. Show how you intend to create change that will improve things. Do not repeat what is in the resume or in the job description verbatim. Do not make a table of “Job Needs” and “I offer” side by side. This shows a lack of imagination.
7. Send the letter, along with the résumé, in a differentiated way, as FedEx, in addition to Website submittal, especially for an “A” or Gold target.
8. Follow-up with the person to whom you sent the original response with diligence.
9. If all this sounds like much trouble, it is. And, that is the point. Very few go through this effort to send a cover letter. Those who do get attention.

10.  Yes, it is time consuming! But, then again, how many jobs do you need?

11.  For a Silver” or “B” target, show some industry insights. This way you can leverage such a letter to other similar targets in the same industry.

12.  For a “Bronze” or “C” target present your credentials without repeating what is in the resume, but in ways that gets attention. Such letters can also be used in other responses without the need to redo them in entirety.

13.  Many examples of real-life cover letters that got attention are in the Author’s The 7 Keys to a Dream Job: A Career Nirvana Playbook!

A Sample Wining Cover Letter

March 22, 2005

Mr. David T. Chancellor

Senior Vice President & CIO

GroceryChain

5918 Stab Way

Oakland, CA 99999

Dear Mr. Chancellor,

I am pleased to respond to the open position of Director, Application Development, Tracking code #422-04, at GroceryChain. I meet or exceed all your job requirements.

With the highly competitive markets in the space in which GroceryChain operates, IT can play a key role in combating inroads by aggressive super chains as Wal-Mart and Costco. Driving costs down is key in successfully establishing a brand and presence for a grocery store chain in the emerging competitive markets and then creating an exceptional customer experience. With GroceryChain’s employee growth at nearly 10 times its revenue growth, there is a great avenue to increase margins by identifying opportunities for productivity gains and automation. I see the following factors as critical to this goal:

• Constantly evaluate how the overall vision for the organization is being implemented through technology initiatives and identify opportunities that remain untapped.
• Identify where costs can be driven down through automation and develop an agenda for prioritizing this across the entire value chain
• Automate as many of the manual functions as are customer friendly, while continually evaluate customers’ preferences to provide an exceptional experience than what is expected.
• Develop a community-specific technology implementation plan that provides most productive and cost effective store operations.
• Constantly evaluate if the current technology infrastructure provides the best ROI and then recommend appropriate initiatives to make sure that this does take place.
• Develop a highly disciplined software development and implementation process that makes businesses drive technology and not the other way around.

My track record will show you how I have used my technology insights and customer/client knowledge to provide the best solutions in a very cost effective and timely way.

I am excited about working for GroceryChain and looking forward to exploring this opportunity further.

Cordially,

Nick Packard

Enclosure: Resume