How to write a cover letter when looking for work in the USA: 7 tips

For many years in the USA, the practice has been extended to require applicants for various vacancies not only a resume, but also a cover letter. In recent years, the importance of this aspect has begun to decline - in 2016, only about 30% of employers required cover letters. This is not difficult to explain - HR specialists, conducting initial screening, usually have too little time to read the letters, it takes just a few seconds to analyze the statistics summary themselves.

However, polls show that the cover letter phenomenon has not yet become a thing of the past, especially with regard to the positions associated with creativity, where writing is important. A programmer can find a job with one resume in the form of a profiled profile on GitHub, while testers, analysts, marketers should take the time to write a letter - they will not be read by “Eychary”, but by managers who select people for their team.
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I found an interesting post about how to approach the writing of a cover letter today when looking for work in the USA, and prepared its adapted translation.

Need to use a template

Usually, with an active job search and resume distribution, quite often there are announcements that, when responding to which, you need to insert or attach a covering letter. A strange fact: at least according to statistics, less than a third of employers read them, up to 90% of them require them to attach. Apparently, this is considered as an indicator of the responsible attitude of the applicant and the way to filter out the most lazy.

But even if you are not too lazy to write a cover letter, doing it from scratch dozens of times is too tiring. Therefore, you need to use a template in which only parts related to a specific position are changed. Here is what a template might look like.

Be sure to include the title

Most often, the cover letter can be attached as an attachment, so it would be good to arrange it. To do this, you can follow the rules of business correspondence, which implies the availability of the following information:

• Name;
• Phone number or email;
• Who do you write to (name of the manager, if indicated in the vacancy / company name);
• Links to your profiles in social networks / site.

Since this is a business correspondence, the style must be appropriate. If you do not have your own domain, at least use mailboxes with neutral names, various sexydude1988@mail.com will not work. You should not write from the corporate mailbox of the current employer, even if you are not working in the USA now - if your resume is studied, then this website will most likely be entered and either will not understand and be confused, or will be understood and everything will not look very correct in relation to the current employer.

Use the three paragraph rule

The main task of the cover letter is to draw attention to your resume. That is, it is an auxiliary tool, which should not delay too much attention on itself, which means that it is not necessary to make it long. Three paragraphs will be more than enough. This is what they can be about:

• In the first paragraph it is important to try to capture the attention of the reader.
• In the second - to describe what you offer.
• In conclusion - to consolidate the impression.

Here are some examples of what you can write about in each section.

Introduction: an indication of suitable experience

According to various sources, recruiters spend from 6.25 seconds to 30 seconds to view a resume. It is clear that they are also not ready to spend a lot of time on the cover letter. So the first paragraph is the most important.

Try to avoid long and overly formal offers. It is important to saturate the paragraph with details that will make it clear that you are a good choice for this particular job.

Bad :

I am writing a job posting. I would like to apply this position. / I respond to your job PR-manager. I have more than seven years of experience in the field of PR, I would like to offer my candidacy.

At first glance, this example is normal. But if you read and put yourself in the place of the hiring manager, it becomes clear that the text could have been made much better. For example, there are no details at all about why this particular candidate is suitable for this particular job. Well, yes, he has more than seven years of experience, and what, to take him only because he did something, as he believes, similar to the tasks described in the vacancy?

Good :

I was excited to follow the PR Manager position. It would be a good fit. While working at the outreach

Transfer

I follow your company quite actively, so I was glad to know that you are looking for a PR manager. I would like to help you solve the problems facing the company in this area, I am convinced that I will do an excellent job with this work. I worked at SuperCorp and was in charge of PR at the level of the whole country, the appearance of Forbes brand references in the media, and for six months of work, the audience coverage on this channel grew by 23%.

The difference is obvious. The volume of the text has increased, but the information load has also increased significantly. Showing concrete achievements in the form of numbers, one can see the desire to apply knowledge and experience to solve new problems. Any employer should appreciate this.

What next: describe the benefits of cooperation

After the initial attraction of attention, you need to develop success and give even more details - for this you need a second paragraph. In it you describe why cooperation with you will bring the company maximum benefit.

In the example above, we considered a cover letter to respond to a PR-manager job at company XYZ. An organization may need a person who:

He has extensive experience with various media, bloggers and blogs, worked with incoming requests for product reviews, etc.

He understands technologies, monitors trends in this area - after all, XYZ is a startup in the field of artificial intelligence.

Here's how to respond to these tasks in a cover letter:

...
I am working on the organization of the SuperCorp. For example, technology-related publications (TechCrunch, VentureBeat, etc.) by 20%. The number of mentions from the list has increased by more than 30%. Referral traffic now brings about 15% of overall website traffic (compared to 5% the year before).

Transfer

At my current place of work in SuperCorp, I deal with PR support for new product releases, plan campaigns, and do reporting. For example, one of the most important tasks in the current year is to increase the number of mentions in the top technological media (TechCrunch, VentureBeat, etc.) by 20%. By the end of the first quarter, the number of references in publications from the list increased by 30%, and the share of referral traffic now amounts to about 15% of the traffic to the site (a year ago the figure did not exceed 5%).

At the beginning of the paragraph, the candidate described his tasks at the current location, indicated that this work was similar to the tasks that now face the new employer, and illustrated the achievements with numbers. An important point: the whole text is built around the advantages for the company: a higher coverage of top media audience, more traffic, etc. When the hiring manager reads this, he will immediately understand what exactly the company will receive if he hires this particular specialist.

Explain why you want this particular job.

It is clear that you do not need to be strongly dispersed on the topic “what attracts you in our company”, but at least to describe in a basic way what attracts you in the tasks of a particular vacancy will not be superfluous. This can be done with the help of three steps.

Mention any event related to the company, its product or service.

Explain why you are interested, show a certain degree of immersion.

Emphasize once again exactly how your experience will help to improve the results for this project / product.

For example:

...
I've read your AI-based shopping app. I’m passionate about the shopper and professional perspective (I’m a passionate shopper). It will help.

Transfer

I read a lot about your application with recommendations for future AI-based purchases. I like the project and as a user - I often go shopping, and as a professional - I love working on promoting newly launched products. I think that my experience with top media and a wide network of journalistic contacts in technological media will be useful for attracting new users.

Important: everything needs to be rechecked

Once again - the cover letter should not be long. The rule of 300 words should be applied to it - everything that exceeds this limit should be reduced.

In addition, you must get rid of typos and grammatical errors. To do this, run the text through a specialized program.

Bonus Tip: Postscript can be useful

Section PS draws attention to any letter - this is a psychological moment. Even if the reader simply scrolls the text, the eye will catch on to the postscript, because at the subconscious level we think that there will be something important in this part of the message. Marketers know this very well and actively use this fact, for example, in email-mailings .

With reference to the composing of a cover letter, this method can be used to provoke feedback, offer assistance, etc.

If you are interested in SuperCorp.

Transfer

PS If it will be interesting, I’m happy to send my ideas on how you could organize the output of your product on TechCrunch or Business Insider, to attract more users - all based on experience with SuperCorp.

Conclusion: Bugs and Tips

In conclusion, let us reiterate the mistakes in the preparation of cover letters to respond to the vacancies of American companies and ways to avoid them.

• Focus not on yourself, but on the employer and the benefits that the company will receive if it hires you.
• Use the three paragraph rule. Maximum you can add another line PS All text should not exceed 300 words.
• Use the template in which you add keywords from the vacancy you are responding to, attach the description of achievements to the tasks indicated in the announcement.
• Recheck everything - ask someone to read the text and run it through the software to search for typos and grammatical errors.