How to write the perfect cover letter for a job ap­plic­a­tion

So, you want to apply for a job? Normally, ap­plic­a­tion documents include a CV, any relevant cer­ti­fic­ates, work port­fo­li­os, and possibly also a mo­tiv­a­tion­al letter. However, the actual ap­plic­a­tion itself takes place in the cover letter, where you address the recipient directly and explain why you are in­ter­ested in the ad­vert­ised position and what qual­i­fic­a­tions you have. In the past, these documents were filed in an ap­plic­a­tion folder. Nowadays, most ap­plic­a­tions are made online, either via e-mail or an input page on the company’s website.

However, re­gard­less of whether you apply by mail or online, some rules apply to every type of ap­plic­a­tion: while the CV, which consists of pure facts, is struc­tured according to standard guidelines, the cover letter has more freedom when it comes to form, while also adhering to a loose structure. More freedom, however, often means more effort. If you want to score points with your cover letter, you have to focus it much more on the position in question, rather than your CV. Ideally, your cover letter should take into account the company you are targeting, the industry, your mo­tiv­a­tion, and the in­di­vidu­al job ad­vert­ise­ment. The cover letter is usually the first im­pres­sion a manager, recruiter, or HR manager gets of you, which is why it is so important to try and impress as much as possible with this opening text. It is not enough to rely on samples, examples, and templates when writing a cover letter – even if they can be found every­where on the internet. What you have to consider in detail when for­mu­lat­ing a cover letter can be found in this article.

Job ap­plic­ants use cover letters to signal their interest in the job to a potential employer. After reading the cover letter, the recruiter should know what your qual­i­fic­a­tions are and why you are in­ter­ested in the job. Ideally, the cover letter should give them a precise im­pres­sion of you as a worker – even without having to leaf through the rest of your documents.

For classic ap­plic­a­tions with multiple documents, the cover letter is the first page. If you design your cover letter con­vin­cingly and set the right pri­or­it­ies, the recipient will be more willing to deal with your ap­plic­a­tion in more detail. Otherwise, your ap­plic­a­tion will be put “ad acta” without being properly perused.

Below are some ex­plan­a­tions for those sections that are not com­pletely self-ex­plan­at­ory:

List your contact details at the top of the document. Provide the recipient with multiple contact options by including a phone number and a le­git­im­ate e-mail address in addition to your home address.

There’s no need to ex­per­i­ment here either. The recipient should be able to see im­me­di­ately what kind of document they have and what position you are applying for. Make the subject a short title instead of using whole sentences like “I would like to apply for position X” or “I am applying for the position of X”.

If you know your contact person, you can address them by name. If this person has a title, you should use it – if there are several titles, the highest title is suf­fi­cient (e.g. “Prof.”, even if the full name contains “Prof. Dr.”). If you do not know your contact person, write “Dear Madam/Sir”. However, it is advisable to research who the contact person is, and address them per­son­ally in the cover letter.

The in­tro­duc­tion is about arousing the reader’s interest in only 3 to 5 lines so that they do not im­me­di­ately reject your ap­plic­a­tion. You can do this as follows:

• Briefly state your mo­tiv­a­tion for the ap­plic­a­tion. Ideally, you can use the in­tro­duc­tion to highlight that your interest in the position results from your previous work ex­per­i­ence and that the ad­vert­ised job position fits optimally to your interests and qual­i­fic­a­tions. However, limit yourself to a few sentences.
• State the main argument for your ap­plic­a­tion. This can be specific knowledge and skills, your pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence, studies and training, or previous successes. Be sure to con­cen­trate on the es­sen­tials. More detailed de­scrip­tions should only take place in the main body of the text.
• A leading sentence rounds off the in­tro­duc­tion. For example, you can emphasise your will­ing­ness to perform.

This section is about selling yourself as a worker and person as con­vin­cingly as possible. The main section should cover the following points:

• Name the most relevant hard skills you possess for the job. Be sure to include the skills that are ex­pli­citly required in the job posting. Don’t just list these skills, but explain how you acquired or used them by referring to your previous work ex­per­i­ence or education.
• Also list your out­stand­ing soft skills. At many work­places, certain soft skills are par­tic­u­larly in demand, e.g. the ability to work in a team, problem-solving com­pet­ence, and res­ist­ance to stress. Soft skills are usually more difficult to prove, but some soft skills are auto­mat­ic­ally as­so­ci­ated with specific positions or in­dus­tries. If an applicant mentions their ex­per­i­ence in a marketing agency, it is quite credible for them to draw attention to their com­mu­nic­a­tion skills. However, avoid too many personal soft skills that are difficult to prove (e.g. knowledge of human nature, empathy), or those that are not of any use for the desired position.
• The main part of your skills should relate as much as possible to the job you’re applying for. In this way, you can explain why your skills make you the ideal candidate for the job. It is also an elegant way to move on to the next section.

In this section, you will answer the following questions: How can I enrich the company and why did I choose this company as my employer? You should give the reader the im­pres­sion that you are the perfect candidate for the position. Not only do you need to relate your skills to the pro­fes­sion­al position, but you also need to explain why you as a person fit into the company. You can achieve this in the following way, for example:

• Describe the job as your next career step. This will give you the im­pres­sion that the job you are aiming for is the logical next step in your career.
• Briefly outline the reasons why you find the company in­ter­est­ing. Highlight the po­s­i­tion­ing of the company within the industry. Explain why it is your personal goal to work in this company.

The last im­pres­sion is one of the most important. However, if the reader has held out to the end, the cover letter has probably already been in­ter­est­ing enough so you will only have to do a little per­sua­sion work. However, always express your wish for feedback. Also signal your will­ing­ness to appear per­son­ally in the company for a job interview. If an earlier starting date is also possible for you, this is a plus point that you could attach at the end. This can be par­tic­u­larly helpful if the company wants to fill the position promptly.

If you invest enough effort and time in your cover letter and adhere to the structure described above, you have already done a lot to make your ap­plic­a­tion stand out. In addition, you should also take the following points into account in order to write a cover letter that is as con­vin­cing as possible.

Your cover letter should contain as many ref­er­ences as possible to the job ad­vert­ise­ment and the position you are looking for. The basic re­quire­ment for this is that you read the ad­vert­ise­ment carefully be­fore­hand. What re­quire­ments does the employer place on the applicant? Which hard and soft skills are ex­pli­citly mentioned in the ad­vert­ise­ment? Which strengths and weak­nesses do you have with regard to the required qual­i­fic­a­tions?

It is best to take notes: for example, write down the 5 most important points in the job ad­vert­ise­ment that you would like to include in your cover letter.

Un­ex­plained gaps in your CV seem un­pro­fes­sion­al and give the im­pres­sion that you quietly hope they will not attract attention. In your cover letter, mention a gap lasting several months (including un­em­ploy­ment). Ex­per­i­enced personnel will notice gaps in your CV and will def­in­itely ask you about them during an interview.

Follow the unwritten rule that a cover letter should not be longer than one A4 page. Many personnel managers put ap­plic­a­tions with overly-long cover letters directly aside and don’t even read them. One page should be com­pletely suf­fi­cient to deal with all the important points. If the employer is in­ter­ested in a longer draft, they will ask for ad­di­tion­al doc­u­ment­a­tion like a mo­tiv­a­tion­al letter. The rule of thumb for online ap­plic­a­tions is that you should be able to read them without having to scroll much. If you send your cover letter online as a PDF file, simply use the A4 format for the printed version.

Do not ex­per­i­ment with format either! For a written ap­plic­a­tion, you should use a legible font like Calibri or Times New Roman. Separate the in­di­vidu­al sections with blank lines or paragraph spacing. Avoid un­ne­ces­sar­ily com­plic­ated elements like tables and sub­head­ings. Basically, you can’t go wrong with your writing program’s factory settings. This also applies to e-mails for which you should com­pletely dispense with special format­ting (depending on the mail program, these may not be displayed correctly to the recipient).

Avoid overly long sentences in the cover letter. Do not build com­plic­ated sub­or­din­ate clauses. Avoid excessive use of foreign words or pictorial language. Also, avoid anything that un­ne­ces­sar­ily stretches the text: frequent use of passive voice, re­pe­ti­tion, and auxiliary verbs. Instead, provide the reader with all relevant in­form­a­tion in as concise a form as possible.

Ideally, you will know someone who is ex­per­i­enced in proofread­ing. Have this person look over your cover letter and ask them for feedback. Often, you won’t notice any volat­il­ity or typing errors if you have worked on a text for a long time. It may also help to have your own text read to you by a text-to-speech program or a screen­read­er. If the language software reads the text aloud, you will notice your own errors more clearly.

Re­strained letters do not stand out from the crowd. By ex­pli­citly inviting the reader to carry out an action in your cover letter, you show self-con­fid­ence and encourage the reader to react. You can do this, for example, by writing in the final section that you are looking forward to the interview (even if you have not yet been invited!).

You can also note in the final part that the employer is welcome to contact you for further in­form­a­tion and refer to your telephone number or e-mail address. However, you should not use this “call-to-action” style in an in­flam­mat­ory manner, otherwise you will appear obtrusive or even desperate. One or two sentences in this style can, however, enrich your cover letter in many cases.

Re­cruit­ers and HR pro­fes­sion­als work their way through a huge number of ap­plic­a­tions in the course of their careers. Ac­cord­ingly, these people have to pre-sort ap­plic­a­tions according to certain criteria so that the hiring process runs as fast as possible. The cover letter alone can contain mistakes or un­reas­on­able state­ments, which could lead the HR manager to ignore your ap­plic­a­tion. We will tell you which errors appear par­tic­u­larly fre­quently in cover letters so that you can avoid them in a targeted manner.

Pictures, tables, eye-catching frames, strange fonts – all this and much more shouldn’t be in a cover letter. The purpose of the cover letter is to present pro­fes­sion­ally relevant in­form­a­tion concisely and precisely. Un­ne­ces­sary design elements distract from this – if the cover letter is too lavishly designed, personnel managers could also get the im­pres­sion that you want to conceal weak points in content or missing qual­i­fic­a­tions within the design.

In certain phases of your life, it might be the case that you are sending dozens of ap­plic­a­tions in a short amount of time. Of course, it is time-saving to write a single cover letter and simply change the name of the recipient in each ap­plic­a­tion. It can be useful to use certain formulae in more than one cover letter. However, you should not use an almost com­pletely unchanged cover letter for every ap­plic­a­tion. At least adapt it slightly to the re­spect­ive ad­vert­ise­ment.

If you don’t do this, an ex­per­i­enced HR spe­cial­ist will notice within a few seconds in the worst case that they have a copy-pasted cover letter. For example, in the final section you may address the wrong company or your qual­i­fic­a­tions hardly match those required in the ad­vert­ise­ment. Ideally, you should not copy at all, but write a separate cover letter for each ap­plic­a­tion. If you do copy your wording, it is important that you make at least some ad­just­ments af­ter­wards.

The cover letter should not be a textual version of your CV. However, many ap­plic­ants make the mistake of merely for­mu­lat­ing in­form­a­tion that is already in their CV. However, unlike your CV, your cover letter serves to establish a personal link between you, the job you are looking for, and the company. In addition, you only highlight in­form­a­tion that is relevant to the job in question, while your CV lists all career stages. Although your CV can serve as an ori­ent­a­tion guide for for­mu­lat­ing your cover letter, you should never use your CV as a 1-to-1 template for your cover letter.

In your cover letter, mention each piece of in­form­a­tion just once. If not, the reader will get the im­pres­sion that you have to stretch the cover letter ar­ti­fi­cially because you have too few qual­i­fic­a­tions to fill an A4 page.

You shouldn’t stray from important content. Ask yourself whether each sentence of your cover letter fulfils a certain function: Does this sentence help me get the job? For example, many ap­plic­ants make the mistake of writing too ex­tens­ively about soft skills, which actually only become clear in the interview. In par­tic­u­lar, if certain knowledge or qual­i­fic­a­tions are required in the job ad­vert­ise­ment, you should first present them before giving too much room to your soft skills.

One last piece of good advice: don’t rely on obvious flattery. This applies in par­tic­u­lar to the section on company relations, where you make a personal con­nec­tion with the company you’re aiming to be hired by. There, you run the risk of at­tract­ing negative attention through ex­cess­ively exuberant state­ments. If you write in a cover letter for a start-up company that it is an es­tab­lished player in the industry and that it would be an honour to work there, the HR manager will discard your ap­plic­a­tion with a smile. Be reas­on­able.

If you flatter yourself, you look un­pro­fes­sion­al and desperate; as if you have to try to cover up weak points in your ap­plic­a­tion with style. Also don’t mention too often how much you want to be invited for an interview – once or twice is enough. You don’t want to look as if you have to beg for the job.

On the web, you will find numerous examples and templates for cover letters. In principle, however, we recommend that you write cover letters yourself. Most HR pro­fes­sion­als have already had contact with numerous templates and are therefore able to recognise im­me­di­ately when they have a cover letter based on a template in front of them. As a rule, this is in­ter­preted in such a way that the company was not worth an in­di­vidu­al cover letter from you.

If you adhere to the standard text structure described above and create your own cover letter, you are on the safe side. Patterns and examples can, however, be used for initial ori­ent­a­tion or com­par­is­on.

• Re­sume­geni­us.com offers a wide range of different cover letter templates. The majority of these are free of charge.
• Live­ca­reer.com offers a free-of-charge cover letter builder tool, which can assist you with every step of writing a cover letter.
• Microsoft Office offer a wide range of Word-com­pat­ible cover letter and CV templates on their office.com website.