Cover Letters vs. Resumes and How to Write a Cover Letter in English [Professional English Skills]

Hey,

it's Annemarie with Speak Confident English and welcome to this week's Confident

English lesson. This is, of course,

exactly where you want to be every week to get the confidence you want for

your life and work in English. If you've been following me for a while, then,

you know,

I love answering specific questions from students and others like you

in my Confident English community. Recently, I received an email from Olga.

Olga has been in the Speak Confident English community with me since I

began in 2014,

she wrote to let me know that she's decided to switch her career and has started

looking for new jobs.

One of the things she noticed is many companies require both a resume and

cover letter. And here's the problem.

A resume is more or less clear, but where Olga lives,

it's not common to use a cover letter.

So she wanted to know what are the principle differences between a resume and

cover letter and what should or shouldn't you write in your cover

letter? And this of course brings up the question. Do you really need one?

She also mentioned that, of course,

there are many examples or websites that talk about cover letters,

but they're too general. They're not very specific.

So she wanted to know if I could help. And yes, I absolutely can.

In fact,

we are going to do the complete opposite and we're going to get very specific

and detailed on what exactly a cover letter is.

When do you need to use it?

Why might it be helpful to you to get ahead of your competitors?

And I'll also share four tips to help you write your perfect cover letter

in English.

All right,

before we can talk about how to write the perfect cover letter in English,

there are three big questions we need to answer. Number one,

when do you need a cover letter?

Number two -Why might it be useful to you to write a

cover letter, even if it's not required? And number three,

how is it different from a resume? Once we've got all of that figured out,

we can get into four steps for writing a perfect cover letter in

English. So question number one. When do you need one? Well,

of course, any time a job description says,

send us your resume and cover letter,

make sure that you absolutely include a resume and

cover letter. If you don't, if you skip that step,

your resume will not be considered.

And if a job description specifically says to not send a cover

letter, then don't.

The first step is being very clear about what the company is asking you

to send and follow those instructions.

But what if the company doesn't say anything about writing a cover

letter? Should you use one?

Here are a couple of things to think about that might help you decide why

you might want to use one. Number one.

Did someone refer you for this position? In other words,

do you know someone already working for the company or do you have some

connection to the hiring manager? If you do,

a cover letter can be a great way to highlight that reference and stand out.

We'll talk more about that when we get to how to write a cover letter.

A second consideration is to include a cover letter any time there is

something that might need some explanation on your resume.

For example, if you have a large gap in your work history,

or if your professional background doesn't perfectly match the job description,

but you know, you're the right fit for the job.

A cover letter is a perfect way to address any questions that might come up when

someone's looking at your resume. And finally,

a third consideration for when a cover letter could be really useful to you is

when you're making a significant career field change.

Your cover letter can be an opportunity to talk about why you're making that

change and how your skills or expertise from your previous profession

are transferable into this new one.

So if you're unclear on whether or not you need a cover letter,

use those considerations to help you generally speaking a cover letter can

be a fantastic way to help you stand out from the competition,

especially when it's well-written. All right.

So we know when to use a cover letter and why it may be useful to you.

Now let's talk a little bit about what is the purpose of a cover letter and how

exactly is it different from a resume?

One way to think of the difference between these two documents is the words

objective and subjective. A resume is objective.

It's just the facts of your educational and professional background.

The work that you've done, responsibilities you've had and your accomplishments,

there's no room for subjectivity or opinion on your

resume. Instead, you list your skills,

you list your educational background and any training that you've received past

responsibilities, and again, any major accomplishments or achievements,

but it is a hundred percent objective. On the other hand,

a cover letter is subjective. Your cover letter answers:

Why.

Why you think you're the right fit for the job and how you think your

skills will the company.

Now that we've got those three questions answered,

let's talk about four tips you can follow to write the perfect cover letter in

English. Step one,

write your cover letter like a professional business letter.

One of the most important parts of writing your cover letter is to

include a person's name. Do your homework in advance.

And as much as you can try to find the first and last

name of the person you're writing to. At all costs,

avoid to whom it may concern and make sure that you don't

use the wrong title.

A little bit of research will usually lead you to the right person who's going

to review your cover letter and resume. Use their name.

And if you absolutely can't find it,

then you could use something like dear hiring manager or dear hiring officer.

Step number two is,

do make your cover letter conversational in tone,

a resume is very impersonal.

We don't use pronouns like I,

or you instead we focus on leading with power

words.

This is something I talk a lot about in my Confident Job Interviews course.

On a resume you'll see something:

like led a team of 14 on an award winning project.

In contrast,

your cover letter will be very personal and conversational.

You will absolutely use pronouns like I, and you.

So that bullet point that you saw on a resume (led a team of 14

on an award winning project) becomes I led a team of

14 on an award winning project.

And then you would go on and include far more detail about that

experience in your cover letter. And with that,

let's move on to step number three,

to write your perfect cover letter in English.

Step three is make sure that you include key words

in your cover letter. What do I mean by that?

I mentioned earlier the importance of doing a little bit of research to

find out who you're writing to, as you do that research,

make sure that you identify keywords in the job

description or in anything that you read about the company.

These are words that you're going to see again and again,

related to the kind of person that they're looking for,

the values they have and the skills or expertise they want

you to have in the position.

Those words are included in the job description for a reason,

because those are the things that are important to the company and the hiring

manager. When they quickly review your cover letter,

they're going to be looking for those key words.

If they don't see any of them,

your cover letter is less likely to stand out.

So how and where should you actually include those keywords when you write your

cover letter? That brings me to step number four.

Remember you are writing a business letter.

So instead of bullet points, you're more likely to use paragraphs.

I recommend using three or four paragraphs in your cover letter.

Your first paragraph is your introduction.

Then you have one or two paragraphs to engage the reader,

talking about why you're interested in the position and how you have the right

skills that they need. And then your final paragraph is your closing.

We'll talk much more about what to include in all of those paragraphs in a

moment, but very quickly here are two important tips.

Number one, keep your cover letter to one page only.

It should not be longer than one page. If it is,

you definitely have some editing to do.

The second thing you definitely should not do in your cover letter is to

repeat everything in your resume.

This is not a second opportunity to go through all of your skills,

your professional background and expertise. Instead,

this is an opportunity to focus in on just one or two

things.

One or two stories you want to tell about why you want to

work for this company,

why you're the right choice and how you're going to use your skills to

help you. Or if we go back to what we talked about at the beginning,

you may be using the cover letter to highlight a reference to

address a work history gap or a change in your professional career.

So let's talk about how you're going to do all of that in just four paragraphs.

Your introduction can be short and simple with just a few sentences that

highlight how you found out about the position,

what excites you about the position.

And if you have someone who referred you to the position,

you can include that as well.

One simple sentence starter I love to use is something like:

after learning about your company's work in ____ or after learning about your

company's commitment to______, I became interested in the position because...

And then state why. After that simple introductory paragraph,

you can go on to paragraphs two and three to either explain

something that needs to be explained or highlight the value that you bring to

the company and use one accomplishment or one

story from your background to underscore that value. Again,

this is not about repeating everything on your resume,

but instead selecting one thing that really stands out to you that

you want the hiring manager to know about.

When I talk about highlighting your value,

what I mean is explaining the skills and expertise that you're going to bring

with you into this position and how it's going to help the

company achieve its goals. Here's a quick example:

due to my high level of empathy and experiences living abroad,

I understand the unique challenges of learning a language as an adult and

gaining confidence in daily communication. As a result,

I'm able to connect easily to students in the classroom and focus on what it is

they need the most. Again,

after you've highlighted that value or explained why you want to work for this

company,

you could also include a specific story from an experience or accomplishment

you've had in your professional background.

Here's an example of how you might do that. Again on a resume,

you might see a bullet point that says:

led team on award winning brand redesign for a fortune

500 company. That is a powerful statement on a resume,

but there's no story to it.

Your cover letter is a great place to highlight the story,

and that could look something like: in 2019,

I led a team of five brand strategists.

Not only did the new brand campaign increase company sales by 37%,

but our work was also recognized with an award from the Content Marketing

Institute.

I believe that my strategic vision and creativity would similarly benefit your

company. And finally, after you've done that,

you can include your closing paragraph. With this paragraph.

It's important to restate your excitement for the position

and include a call to action.

What that means is you're asking the hiring manager to do something specific.

You might ask the hiring manager to review your resume, which is attached,

or you may include your contact information and ask them to follow up with

you for an interview. If you follow all four of those steps,

you are well on your way to writing the perfect cover letter in English. Now,

if you're here,

I know that you're in the process of looking for a job in English or you're

planning to do so in the future.

If you have questions about the job interview process or the job application

process in English, be sure to leave a question in the comments below. Also,

I have several different lessons already available to help you.

For example,

I have a lesson on 10 common questions that you'll hear in a job interview in

English and how to answer those.

And I have a in-depth free training available on three

secrets to confidence for a job interview in English.

I'll leave a link to both of those below this video. And as always,

if you found this lesson useful to you, I would absolutely love to know.

You can tell me in two simple ways, number one,

give this lesson a thumbs up here on YouTube and number two,

subscribe to this channel so you never miss one of my Confident English lessons.

With that have a wonderful week, and I'll see you next time.