Interview Winning CV / Resume Cover Letters

Interview Winning CV / Resume Cover Letters

Cover letters are really important, and should be used every time you send a CV / resume to a recruiter, company HR department, or company hiring manager.

For avoidance of doubt when I say hiring manager I mean your potential future boss, or the person that owns the department or has the business problem that you solve.

Writing cover letters and CV / resumes are tasks straight from Hell as far as most people are concerned. The whole exercise often has unhappy memories, and requires us to draw upon skills we don’t have. Cover letters and CV / resumes are really all about copywriting, and not many of us are trained in copywriting!

There is always the option of hiring someone to write your CV / resume and cover letters for you. A good option if you choose your writer wisely. They really must take the time to get to understand you and the skills you offer, and the role(s) you wish to target. The best copywriter in the world won’t be effective unless they understand the product and the target market!

This site however is all about helping you to become your own copywriter; it’s an easily learnable skill. A skill that can be truly life changing if you consider that most of your adult life is spent working, and this one skill could help you gain whatever roles you desire, with the appropriate salary.

This is a skill you will use time and time again, both for internal promotions or when looking at new opportunities.

My objective here is to give you enough copywriting skills and confidence to create your own interview invitation winning cover letters, though to save you time, I have also provided a number of examples in Microsoft word that you can download and modify for your own purposes.

Key copywriting principal; people buy ideas not products, or put another way don’t sell yourself based on features, focus on the benefits.

There is a mountain of research into the psychology of buying, selling and copywriting, and it boils down to; if you can help through your written words to get your reader to “imagine” themselves benefiting form whatever it is you offer, you’re well on your way to making the sale.

The great news is that most cover letters and CV / resumes are mediocre at best, formal, dull, devoid of personality and hardly ever written with the reader’s objectives in mind.

So let’s embrace the massive opportunity this exercise offers.

In the last section we mentioned the “marketing silver bullet” or “offer they cannot refuse”, you may have started work on yours already, and well this will be its first usage.

Another copywriting principal here; copywriters never get the finished article on first writing, it usually takes even the best copywriter considerable editing and polishing to get to a point where they’re happy. So don’t worry if you struggle for words or inspiration, just write anything, it’s better to get something on paper, to get the process started than to delay, and try and get it right first time.

Let’s now consider the perfect CV / resume cover letter MUST contain

The rest of this page is for interviewing answers members only.

1. The salutation or greeting: You must find out the persons name your writing too, not simply address it to “whom it may” concern or “Manager of HR department”. The effort will be richly rewarded.
2. A headline statement, your silver bullet or a variation of; this must grab the readers attention and compel them to read on.
3. 3 to 5 bulleted examples of what you can do for them, based on previous achievements.
4. A bold hint to carry on reading the CV / resume.
5. A confirmation that you will follow up, time and dated that you MUST stick to.
6. Your name and clear contact details.
7. A Postscript or P.S – Copywriters and direct sales experts tell us that the P.S is the most read part of any sales letter, so make the most of this knowledge and add another compelling message here.

Before moving on to an example or two lets, consider point number 2 the headline statement. This not surprisingly is the most important part, and can be approached in a number of different ways.

1. A bold compelling statement that demonstrates you’ve done your homework on them, and know how you can help them achieve their objectives. “ You’ve a great product and a ripe market, I’m expert in gaining fast market share in emerging technologies, let me show you how we can dominate  this market”
2. Via a personal reference – a chance to benefit from your association with someone who already has trust and a relationship in place with your target. Obviously get permission to use this connection, and make sure they are respected by your target.
3. A question. Questions are super powerful in copywriting, as when you ask your reader a question they naturally think of the answer, they can’t avoid it it’s the way the brain works. Using Jane our expert SAP project manager as an example again, Jane may choose to open her cover letter she’s seen posted with a question like “how much in cost savings can be realised by rationalising accounting systems using SAP? Or if she wants to try the power of a scare story “why do 80% of SAP implementations run over time and over budget, and how do you prevent this happening to yours?
4. Refer to a news item or article or speech that your target may have made or may affect them. For example if you read that your target has just launched a new customer support hungry service, and you offer expertise in customer service, tie your headline statement in with this news item. Being an admirer of your company I picked up on the news of your exciting new service offering, and being an expert in reducing customer service costs whilst improving customer experience, wanted to demonstrate how I may benefit you…

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