Take Risks With Cover Letters

Most jobs that are desirable have tons of applicants, and even ones that don’t prefer to hire people that they want to work with. If you think about the hiring process, and what the employer wants out of it, it immediately becomes clear that the optimal strategy- much like in dating- is to be polarizing.

Hiring by nature is selective. A variety of people want to trade their time and specific skills in exchange for stability. But, what is an employer to do when more people who are qualified to fill positions apply than the openings themselves? They look for ways to root people out! So, being boring, doing poorly on tests, and guidelines about speed of reply take precedence because they can.

The odds are, as a human, that you won’t be remarkable in every aspect. So, the winning strategy when applying is to choose which areas to apply to. You want to show that you can GRAB SOMEONE’s ATTENTION, because no one wants to work with boring coworkers.

When I say be polarizing, I wouldn’t recommend putting strong opinions about the Israel Palestine conflict in your introduction, but I would be bold, and include relevant interesting information. In the next paragraph, I want to delve into some writing tips that I think can make your writing more interesting.

There are a variety of ways to write cover letters, but let’s cover a few best practices. First, you want to focus on showing rather than telling. You can apply this principle by leaving a few dots unconnected, which shows you respect your employers’ intelligence. Second, if you want to show you have a quality, think of a situation that demonstrates that quality. Third, credibility is important; avoid lying, include memorable details and create a clear narrative. You want patterns to emerge, rather than one-off experiences to appear consistent. Putting these tips together begins to paint a clearer picture of who you are. This picture gives a clearer idea of whether you’d be someone the specific employer would like.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve put in a cover letter?