With the amount of time, energy, and effort that most people put into creating a resume, it is amazing how few of them bother to write out good cover sheets. A lot of them just tack on a standard fax cover sheet no matter where they are sending it. I have been working in human resources for years, and I could not even begin to count how many perfectly good resumes I have had to throw out because the sender did not include a proper cover letter. Few of these people ever find out why they don’t get the job, either. They go back to working on their resumes, never suspecting that, if they just took a little bit of time to write a cover letter that looked good, they would get hired in a second!
First of all, be sure to follow the proper form with cover sheets for resumes. When you are writing a resume, there are many different ways to lay things out. There are probably hundreds of different resume styles that are acceptable. With cover sheets and other kinds of business letters, there is often only one way to do things. If you stray even slightly from the accepted form, most HR people will throw your resume in the garbage. After all, we get hundreds of resumes for any given job posting. Weeding out people who can not follow directions is the easiest way to start narrowing the choices.
When you are writing cover sheets, it is important to strike the right tone. Most people know that writing a cover sheet that is too informal will lose the job for you. What few people realize is that writing one that is too formal can cause you to lose the job as well. Don’t get me wrong ? if you are not sure, it is usually better to err on the side of formality. Even so, most businesses are looking for someone who will be able to easily fit in to the corporate culture. This means that in a traditional business you have to be proper and formal, while in a more modern company you have to be casual and laid-back. No matter what tone your covers sheets take, you should make sure that you come across as confident. If you do not appear to believe that you are qualified for a job, no one will hire you!
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