After getting through this week’s readings, it has become clear that most of the same rules for resumes apply to cover letters. Most importantly, know who your audience is, and tailor make your cover letter to their eyes. It is a little harder to do this for a cover letter compared to a resume, however. A resume is quantified and concise, displaying the black and whites of who you are and what you have accomplished. A cover letter is, in a sense, the lead-in the conversation that is your job interview. The cover letter, according to the readings, needs to convey a “natural speech” tone to best display how you communicate verbally. I really disagree with the readings on this point. I feel that a cover letter should be a representative example of the work you will produce for the company: clean, professional, and efficient. I don’t think your recipient’s name should be used outside of the greeting line. To me this shows a sense of undue personal entitlement, and to some people may come off as offensive. I also think a cover letter, or any other professional work, should most definitely contain language that you wouldn’t normally use in daily conversation. Often times speaking the industry “lingo” is a way to show competency and professionalism, and I think hiring managers are looking for these aspects over “conversational” skills.
I’m also in disagreement with the need of a cover letter at this stage in our careers. A cover letter is a place to elaborate upon past experiences, as they are relevant to the job being sought. Most of us will not have many experiences to elaborate on at this stage, and most internship experiences can be covered on the resume. From my personal experience, cover letters are not nearly as crucial as resumes when starting your career. I have probably applied for 35-40 jobs since August, and no more 4 have asked for a cover letter. When I interviewed for one company that did require a cover letter, the interviewer told me he didn’t even read any letters. It was only required to make sure applicants were serious about interviewing for the job; it was a weed-out mechanism.
Ranting aside, I do believe that cover letters will take on a greater role in the future, after having an established career and applying for a new job. With a number of years in industry, it must be very hard to showcase all of your relevant experiences on a resume. Here, the cover letter is a great tool to bridge that resume to the job with your experiences. That being said, it is beneficial for us to learn effective cover letter tactics, I just don’t think they’ll come into seriously play yet.
Professionalism
I strongly agree with the way you feel about using a “natural speech” pattern or using a “conversational” tone when making your resume. I also would want to try and sound as professional and clean cut as possible in my cover letter. I do not want the person reading my cover letter to think that this is the way I will always write, or that is how I would turn in an assignment. I too might find it offensive if someone turned in a cover letter to me that was unprofessional or was not written formally.
In my eyes, a cover letter should be just as neat, professional, and formal as your resume.
I second that ...
I have to second your comments, Joey, on a natural speech pattern but still sounding as professional and "clean cut" as possible. I think referring to it as a "natural speech pattern" is a good way to put it. For me, conversational comes across as saying it's ok to write how we might speak, and I don't think that's a good idea for a cover letter. For example, I wouldn't want to use as many contractions as I'm using in this comment in a cover letter ... even though I think both can use rather informal tones! My cover letter is very well the only sample of writing an employer will see, and particularly as a person applying to BE a writer, I would never want them to judge my writing ability from an overly conversational cover letter.
Kristin
...And third
As Kristin said, writing style is important with some jobs, and keeping a letter overly-conversational could be your downfall. Without knowing the person who is reading our cover letter, how can our writing be so relaxed? It's almost common knowledge that engineers are terrible with grammar and conversational language to begin with. I think it's important for us to keep in mind that we aren't having a conversation with the reader. It's completely one sided. Furthermore, not only is this your first example of writing for the company to judge, it may also be your last. Your letter has to stand on it's own, in a concise and professional manner, and I think that the writer should show their best writing ability. Wait for the interview to show your conversational skills.
Following the trend...fourth
I have always thought cover letters to be a bit over the top. Personally I have never been asked or required to have a cover letter. I always thought there were only needed for “higher up” jobs or positions were there is really an over abundance of applicants. I never thought of it before but with Kristen’s situation, a well written cover letter could be crucial. I also agree that using names and compliments could be getting a little too personal. You should certainly sound friendly and be yourself, but still be professional and semi-formal I think is still important.
Harsh world
I have also always felt that cover letters are over the top for the types of positions to which I have applied. I can see the importance of cover letters in certain situations, but for our experiences in applying for entry level positions right out of college, I’m not sure that they are necessary either. Once we have some more important details to tell about ourselves and are near the same level of experience as those who will be reading our cover letters, then we can really put them to use. It is a good thing to learn about these here though, better here than out in the harsh real world.
www.JFlitt.com
Conversational Tone
I have to disagree with you guys a little bit here. I don't exactly agree with the book about sticking to a totally conversational tone, but I also think you need to be careful of being too formal. Keep in mind that your cover letter will be just one in a stack of many others, and you want it to stick out from the rest. In the resume, you did that by being formal and to the point. In the cover letter however, you may be better off trying to relate to the HR person. They know that you can be concise because they have probably already read your resume, now is your chance to show that you are a real person who can relate to other real people. It will be hard to find a balance between formal and informal writing in this case, but I think being overly formal here could do more harm than good.
Important Qualification
I think your caveat about "natural speech" is a necessary one. If the cover letter should be tailored for the company, their work, and their values, then the style of the letter should match those first and foremost.
I think, as well, that it is a good idea to treat the cover letter as a writing sample of sorts. This, of course, functions as an important qualifier to your own claims about cover letters. If cover letters are not just about the information they contain (as when they serve as a sample of your work product), then being able to produce a good cover letter (regardless of the experiences you have to articulate) is important.
Also, you will, at various points in the semester, produce documents you might not ever produce again. The importance of the writing projects for this course are the rhetorical lessons implicit in each assignment as well as your ability to adapt your writing to unfamiliar genres.
Need for a cover letter
I agree that at this point in our lives, a cover letter does not need to be a necessity. Since our recent experiences have been stated in our resumes, and most of our lives have centered around education, it is difficult to elaborate on previous careers. My previous internships did not require a cover letter with my resume so I opted to leave it out. I find it interesting that AJ points out how his interviewer did not read the letter, only used it to see how serious they took the internship. I will consider this when I go to send out my next resume because he has a good point.
Weed out mechanism
Adam, I enjoyed reading your post! I will agree with you to a certain extent that cover letters really aren't that necessary at this point in our careers. While some companies may require them, I too have found they sometimes wind up being weed out mechanisms. Nathaniel posted something on my wall I found it interesting pertaining to your post. Basically, as our careers do advance we will be writing more and more cover letters to better highlight our specialized experiences. So, as annoying as they are, and even more annoying that sometimes recruiters don't even read them, it can't hurt to at least start somewhere and start getting some experience.
They are useful now too
Cover letters can be useful as soon as you start looking for a job. Of course, you have to exclude the employers that don't read them. The cover letter is a place for you to sell yourself. To explain, in natural speech form, why you are a great candidate. Personally, I think your resume is more useful to get a sense of your past experiences. The cover letter should sell what is already in the resume.