While applying to many companies, I have never produced a letter to send with my resume. There are not too many people I know who have written cover letters while applying for a job. The readings were very useful with providing information on creating a good cover letter to accompany your resume.
From the first reading, "Kairos and the Cover Letter", I found it useful on the approach of a cover letter. There were 4 different samples provided, generating different genres to approach the reader. Depending on the writers personality will determine the approach of writing and the tone they are comfortable with. While writing my cover letter I plan to use the “Me” approach.
The second reading, "Junk Cover Letters Kill Good Resumes", was relaying on how approximately 60% of the cover letters are read. I know if I were to read 60% of my school work I would more than likely fail. Although the reader still gives encouragement to send a cover letter, it may be the deciding factor between resumes. The use of conversational dialog is recommended for easy of reading, rather than showing the audience that you can use a thesaurus. This reading also suggests using the person’s name, if available, at least twice. I plan to research more so I can do this.
From the instructor blog #3, gives me an idea of how to create a design of a good cover letter while tying it in with my resume. This is the most useful reading with providing the basics of what to apply. Between this reading and the previous weeks of reading, I have a solid base of being able to draft a cover letter that will go with my resume
Overall, I feel just providing a cover letter that is specifically written to a company will show that you are really interested. Also having a cover letter for an entry level position is not really necessary; however, for when you are not looking for an entry level job you can later use the information for applying for a non-entry level job.
Including Cover Letters
Your opening statement that you had never sent a cover letter with your resume got me to thinking. I was surprised by the number of people who say they've never sent a cover letter with their resume until I started thinking about my own experience. I guess I have never really sent a cover letter in the traditional sense of mailing one on top of my resume (although I have written several for class projects like this one). But, I wouldn't say that I've never sent a cover letter ... I think we often send them without realizing it. I know that I have sent my resume out by e-mail or submitted to an electronic job application several times, and I have always included at least a paragraph-long note that has all the components of a cover letter (where I heard about the job, a snippet about why I'm qualified or interested, etc.). I think we often send these short little cover letters without considering them as such. In another course I'm taking, we read an article about e-mail cover letters. The author had done a study that showed that the more often resumes were preceded with these short messages, the more often those applicants got the job!
Kristin
Great point about cover letters as a formality
One common interpretation of cover letters is that they are a hoop you have to jump through to get an interview. This isn't surprising. From the time we started writing resumes we've been bombarded with: "Don't forget to write a cover letter. Send a thank you note. Follow up." But usually we don't get great explanatiosn of why. The true reason is that those things help to get your name into a recruiter's head and make you stand out. But it's really easy based on our reasonless bombardment to think that it's just a formality, like filling out an I-9 when you start at a job.
I like your point about e-mail cover letters because it takes the formality out of the equation. It's the same information in a format that we're more used to. I would have said prior to reading your comment that I've never written a cover letter. However, I have spent at least an hour every time I've sent my resume writing up and tweaking the e-mail to go along with it. Thinking about it, I've always included (unknowingly) many of the ingredients of a cover letter, too. Just like a cover letter, a transmittal e-mail serves the purpose of, "Hi. let me introduce myself. Here's what my resume says and why you should hire me." And since it's less formalized, recruiters are probably less guarded against e-mail introductions, which would make them more effective. So I'm not surprised to hear that they lead to more hires. Good comment.
Thank You...
I never once sent an “email cover letter” or left a note when I have sent my resume out in an email or submitted it to an electronic job site, but after reading your comments, Kristin and TANoNati, I see the value in it. I always just thought that my resume would do the talking, but now I see that if I wrote a paragraph about why I am best suited for the job or about how I would improve the company, that it would greatly help my shots of actually getting the job.
Most likely the next time that I email or electronically submit my resume to a company I am going to include a short email/note on why I think I am the best candidate or on how I will help improve their company. Thank you both for the idea and hopefully it will help in the future.
Do I Really Need One??
I am also beginning to see a trend of blog posts mentioning a lacking of prior cover letter necessity. I think that it depends a lot on the career path you’re taking, as well as the job that you are applying for. In tough market times, such as now, when countless resumes are likely being submitted for a single position, it certainly helps to submit a cover letter along side to help you stand out from the masses. Also, in engineering, I think cover letters are generally requested on a less frequent basis. For the most part, I think potential employers for engineers are more concerned with actual facts and core information, which is presented in the resume. They also likely are under the impression that engineers aren’t the best writers, and so they may avoid taking this route.
Careers
I am realizing I am not the only one who has not written a cover letter, and I agree with you nmhess, that it does have something to do with potential career paths. Even though as engineers you still must be able to communicate, the type and skill is different. Engineers really just want the answers, not elegant descriptions of them. I would imagine a management or business major would most certainly want to include a cover letter, and it would be consider out of the ordinary if one was left out. But with everyone looking for jobs its just another way to stand out.
I wrote one
Just to play the devil's advocate -- I've written a cover letter to an employer once. When I heard back from them, it was not clear to me whether or not they read the letter. The only reason I wrote one was because they had a blank for it on the form. I did not spend too much time writing it, and I was not very specific. I thought that just writing one shows that you gave them what they asked for, but I didn't think it was worth investing a lot of time into. Obviously, it was enough to get me the interview so they didn't pay too much attention to its quality.