Aghh! Covering Letters! Presentation, Presentation, Presentation!

Obviously, if you’re sending out a CV, then you have to write a covering letter – a relevant, well-produced letter that has to be short enough to hold the reader’s attention, long enough to say what you need to say, and interesting enough to persuade the recipient to read your CV.

I was never actually in love with constructing a CV - and I was never keen on completing application forms either because I almost always managed to put something in the wrong box – but I really HATED writing covering letters!

There’s nothing for it, of course, but to keep on messing around with your sentences until the letter is short enough and long enough and (hopefully!) interesting enough to do the trick. In the meantime clarity and good presentation goes a long way toward grabbing someone’s attention:

• If the advert doesn’t specify to whom exactly you should be writing, ring up and find out who is dealing with the applications. At least that way your letter ends up on the right desk, and you get brownie points for good manners and initiative.


• If you have to telephone to get a name – don’t forget to ask the person to whom you speak to spell the name for you. Geoffrey once got an application addressed to Jeffrey Meltis. I don’t think I need to tell you how impressive he found that.
• Make sure that you state clearly – in a emboldened heading, preferably – exactly which job you’re chasing. Big companies in particular tend have several vacancies at any given time, and you don’t want to find yourself being interviewed for something quite other than you had in mind. Don’t laugh – it can happen. People see what they want to see – and read what they want to read.


• Set the letter well on the page. Don’t cramp everything up at the top and leave a huge white space at the bottom, for example, because letters like that tend to look as though the writer couldn’t be bothered to design the letter properly, and just ran it off in a rush. A piece of paper is a big white space. If it’s filled in a balanced way then it looks pleasant and harmonious – and gives the impression that the writer has taken some care and trouble over it.


• The last word on the page (right at the bottom!) should be ‘enclosures’ – and after it (in brackets) should be the number of enclosures. It’s correct and efficient, of course, to do that, but the fact is that few people can resist counting the enclosures they’re supposed to have – and whilst one is counting one is also looking and reading. It’s a way of drawing attention to the enclosures.


• Try to get some nice paper for your covering letters. People are more impressed by that aspect of presentation than you might think.


• READ WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN BEFORE YOU SEND THE LETTER. People don’t just see what they want to see – they see what they believe to be there. It’s amazingly easy to miss out a word or overlook a typo. And don’t rely on your spell check. It doesn’t know from context, and it can help you to come up with some real howlers!

Obviously, content is very important – but presentation is very important too, because first impressions are important, and your covering letter offers a prospective employer a chance to form a ‘first impression’ of you. Make it a good one!

Emily http://www.therapypartnership.com