Your source for free career tools and tutorials
Cover Letter Mistakes to Avoid
Cover Letter Mistakes to Avoid: See some common mistakes that you might make during the composition of your cover letter. How you can either fix them or avoid them altogether? As some people write their cover letters, they ignore certain elements. They spend most of their time and energy perfecting their resume, and while it is a good idea to make your resume great, your cover letter also remains as an important piece of your professional portfolio.
Cover Letter Mistakes to Avoid
There are a few very common mistakes that you can make during the writing process that you should be keen to avoid.
- Spelling and Grammar: Be sure everything is spelled correctly and you use proper grammar. Our creator program has a built-in spell check feature can help you with this.
- Inaccuracy: Of course, you should make sure that every detail that you include about any organization or business is completely correct and up to date.
If you comprise your document with misinformation, you will appear unprofessional. This document and your resume should not have conflicting facts.
- Impersonal Voice: This is your opportunity to express yourself as an actual person instead of a piece of paper with your life story listed in bulleted form.
Make sure that when you are writing, it sounds educated, but not robotic. No one wants to read a boring dissertation about your life; they want a story with personality.
- Irrelevant Goals: The purpose of this letter is to become more appealing to a potential employer. Incorporating goals or skills that have nothing to do with the job in which you are applying for isn't going to do you any favors. Market yourself to a company in the best way that you can with the most relevant and impressive information you can provide. Use action verbs and keywords related to the job at hand.
- Forcing Desperation: You are trying to persuade a company to hire you, not beg them to consider you.
Sounding desperate is pathetic and your experience and personal characteristics should speak for themselves during the job interview process, regardless of how much experience and education you have.
- Writing in Third Person: Do not write in the third person. If you use pronouns like "he" or "she," or even write about yourself using your own name you will disconnect yourself from the reader. Choose to write in the first person and use pronouns such as "I" and "me," but don't overdo it.
- Making Demands: While you shouldn't come across as desperate, you also shouldn't make forceful or demanding statements either. It happens that someone will write something like "I am looking for a job in which I can be challenged and get paid well." That is not an appropriate statement to make; you are putting your own needs before the company's, and this is a major turnoff to an employer. How will your abilities benefit the company?
- No Signature: Neglecting to sign at the bottom is impersonal and unprofessional. Make sure that even if you send it as an electronic copy, you attempt to sign your name with a script-type font.
There are countless mistakes that you can make during the writing process of a cover letter. However, the bottom line is that it needs to be professional and represent you as a competent person. What you are willing to provide for a company, and whom you intend to be during your time working there are the messages that you should wish to get across within these few paragraphs.
Making a good impression via cover letter and professional portfolio is important, which is why you should take care to avoid these mistakes and
optimize it.
Formatting and cover letter styling are a few details that you won't have to worry about if you choose to use the
free cover letter creator program. We also have built-in examples that can be the basis for your own. Click the following link to get started!