Cover Letters

This article on cover letters was definitely very beneficial to me. I have worked so much with drafting resumes since high school, but I have not had nearly as much experience with creating cover letters. I definitely understand now the benefits of making a cover letter more personal and researching a bit into the company that you are sending it out to beforehand. I have been applying for internships recently, so I already have a cover letter drafted, but I am definitely going to make some changes to it. I think the one I have drafted is too generic for all job applications. I did, however, realize that you can’t wait for a company to call you to set up an interview. You need to take the initiative and call them. In my cover letter I say something like, “I will be calling your office in a few weeks to inquire about possible internship or job opportunities”. The one part of the article that I am not sure that I agree with is the PS part, or more specifically, writing it free-hand. There is something about PS that seems kind of unprofessional to me, and I can’t imagine writing it in hand-writing. I don’t think I will ever use this technique on a cover letter. It was also interesting to learn that many cover letters are not even read. I thought they were the first thing to be looked at but it does make sense that employers wouldn’t even read it unless they liked the resume. After having read this article, I realize that there is a lot more importance placed on a well-written cover letter than I had thought.