Remember the saying, "You can't judge a book by its cover." Forget about it. Most people do. So what does this have to do with the job search? Everything. In your job search, the instrument that hiring managers will use to judge whether they should read your résumé is your cover letter. A cover letter is a brief letter or e-mail that you send along with your résumé to hiring managers to convince them to consider you for a given position. Unlike the résumé, which stays fairly consistent, it is the cover letter that allows you to really customize your sales pitch to a given opportunity. The cover letter is what convinces hiring managers to want to read your résumé. While the résumé demonstrates what you have done in the past, the cover letter is what describes what you can do for prospective employers in the future.

The best cover letters recap the needs of the position and then show how you are the ideal candidate for that position. Cover letters should be concise and should very clearly state why a hiring manager should consider you for a given position. Just like the intent of a book cover is to sell the book, the intent of the cover letter is to sell you. The goal of the cover letter is to get you an interview. Just like no résumé in itself will get you a job, no cover letter will either. However, a poorly written cover letter will cost you opportunities just like a poorly written résumé, so it is critical to make your cover letter as enticing as possible. In this section, we will discuss the most prevalent circumstances where it is appropriate to send out a cover letter and how to craft a letter that will get you noticed.

For a high-level overview of the topics covered in this section, simply scroll down the page. In addition, directly below, there is a link to a summary of exercises for this section. To begin, just click on an individual topic of interest, or click on the 'BEGIN: Section' link. To gain the most value from this program, we suggest reviewing the entire section and completing the exercises as you go. Once again, thank you for taking this program. Welcome.