Transcripts
1. Intro: My name is I am. If you don't know me, I work in book publishing as an
events manager today, I wanted to talk to you
about cover letters. Everyone's favorite
topic, not really. Cover letters are extremely
annoying to create. Let's just face it. You've got to tailor
a cover letter to each job obligation
that you actually do. And it's so time-consuming,
it's stressful. And it's just like not
that great a task. I want to be honest. I didn't even know that cover
letters were a thing when I first started to
apply promising jobs. And then obviously I found out I had to
really get some help because I wasn't IT racist writer and cover letters are
all about telling a story. And it's just like really hard. I think I was personally always bringing my
second language, which was obviously
an added obstacle, but also I just didn't
really know what to say. I didn't really have a huge amount of experience
to put my cover letter, and I didn't really know how long it should be
used to give me so much anxiety to try
and figure out how to do this whilst not missing out
on the application window. Anyway, one thing I can say is that things haven't
really changed in the sense that I still don't particularly like
writing cover letters. But I have become
quite good at it and I can actually turn them
around much faster. So you've got to look
forward to if you're just at the start of your
cover letter journey, it will get better. But today what I wanted
to talk to you about is some quick tips that can
hopefully help you if you have never wrote a cover letter or if you need a bit of a refresh because you are about to apply for US some jobs, all publishing jobs that I know. Actually you required
to have a cover letter. I have personally never seen a job not requiring
a cover letter. I think it's just a really
good thing to learn how to do. So I'll take you through some very quick cover
letter tips that will make writing
car or left or a little less daunting and
just a little bit easier.
3. Format your cover letter: What about the format? There are lots of
different ways in which you could like for
my your cover letter. But what I thought I
would share with you is what my preferred format is, which actually helps me to
make sure that I am writing all the right things
that I'm sharing all the right kind of
content in my cover letter. But whilst making it a bit more manageable
for me to write, I like to keep a very,
very simple format. So what I do is I
put the Dear Hiring Manager or dear jonathan,
That's my boss. Hey Jonathan, I hope
he's not watching this. But anyway, then I'll pull the first few lines about me acknowledging that I am
applying for that job. Once I have done that, I will focus on talking about why I actually wanted
to get this job. So a few lines above me talking about YM
as a professional. And then like acknowledging
why I'm applying for this specific position
in the specific company to really hook the person
who is reading it in and make them see that actually
I have done my research. The buddy, the main body of my cover letter will be
dedicated to my experience. So I'm gonna talk about any
previous relevant experience. Please do not put anything that is irrelevant to
your cover letter is precious space and you should not be like Andi
and a million things, but we'll talk about
content in just 1 second. Once you have written
the buddy sharing your relevant experience
where you can do at the end is just having one
final paragraph where you can wrap it up and really drawing from what you have just said in the
body of the cover letter, you can talk about why you think you'd be a great
addition to the team. And just like a one
more line about why this particular rule and
this particular project, if it's linked to a project, would be perfect
for you to be able to do and for the
company to have you on. If that makes sense, then
I will close it with just some notation to say that maybe that's
the top width. But anyway, like
yours sincerely or regards or whatever you
want to apply it and think it matters that
much and your full name. And then you're done. So to summarize, you want to have the first part
to hear about what WE are applying for
and why in the body of the cover letter where
you're going to put is your relevant experience. And then you're
gonna make a really nice closing paragraph
drawing from that and making
sure that it's very clear why you are the
perfect person would a job, and why they would be
very lucky to have you.
5. Content of you cover letter: Now let's talk a little
bit more about content. The content of your
cover letter is going to make a
difference on whether you actually get an interview or you don't your CV,
It's important 100%, but the cover
letter is where you can really bring
your experience to life and you really have to remember that when you're
trying to write it, my suggestion would be to answer these three very simple questions
in no particular order. Why you widest company
and why this job? Once you have ensured that all those three questions are answered in
your cover letter, can feel more confident because you have actually included the majority of the
information that the recruiter is
probably looking for. What mistake that
I used to make it a lot and I think a
lot of other kinds of its do as well is that I
was making it all about me. My entire cover letter was a relentless list of things that I had done project
that I had worked on. And I wasn't really making a point to highlight
why I wouldn't be the perfect candidate for this
company or for these jobs specifically even you'll have
to make that very clear. You'll have to make
sure that together we talking about your experience and why you are a
brilliant candidate. You also highlight what you think you can bring to the
position and to the company. Just make sure that you are showing that you understand
the value of this company, you understand the
responsibilities of this job, and that you are the
perfect candidate with the perfect
skills, expertise, and attributes to actually lend this position and
make a success of it. The way you do that is, which is the next point,
focusing on keywords. Keywords are your friends. What I have learned to
do is to basically take a job description and highlight anything that to
me sounds like a keyword. So this could be
anything that refers to what kind of candidate
they're trying to recruit. So it could be, could sound
like they're trying to recruit someone who's
enthusiastic and strategic. Or it could be that
they're talking about a very specific area of the business that they
are trying to develop, whatever that is,
identifying those keywords. And what I mean by
using keywords, I don't necessarily mean
using the same words. Or sometimes if
they're looking for an enthusiastic and
proactive person and you are that then obviously
use those words. That's completely fine. Don't copy obviously the
entire your job description because that would be weird. But what you're going
to be able to do if you really look
and pay attention to the job description is
you're going to be able to identify the kind of expertise
that they're looking for. And then looking at your CV, looking at what all the
experiences you've done, make sure that you talk about
those experiences that will resonate with the
person that is going to read your application. In this way, you can cut through the noise and you can really stand out as the best
candidate for this position. Something else that I wish
I had learned before is that it's important to
not repeat word by word. Your CV. What you don't want
your cover letter to be is a complete replica or a sort of like
paraphrase replica of your bullet
points in your CV. You want to make sure your
cover letter is an addition. And think about this when you're doing an application is very important that every
single document that you'll have to submit, this could be a CV,
a cover letter, and then an additional
document may be talking or answering
some questions. Every single one of
those documents is an opportunity for you to
talk about something else. Cover all your bases, make sure that you
highlight different things. Make sure that you take
the cover letter as a way, not just to bring
your CV to life, but to bring yourself,
your personality, to present yourself
as who you are. Why you'd be good for the job, why you'd be a
perfect addition for that company a
full year doing is basically listing
out all the jobs that you have already
highlighted in your CV, then the cover letter
is going to be a bit of a waste of time and you might get a
call for an interview, but also I think
especially when there are so many other applicants, compelling cover
letters are will help you to stand out
and will help you to ultimately get the job.
7. Check your spelling: One final thing is
check your spelling. I used to make so many typos
and a lot of time I probably didn't realize and
despite the fact that I was writing obviously
in a Word document, it wouldn't catch them and
it would be really bad. And then I'd realize after
and nobody wants that. So make sure you
check your spelling. Some ways that you can
do this is obviously asking a friend or a
colleague or someone else to basically read through your cover letter to make sure
that it sounds all right. You have Rama is on
point and etc, etc. And there are no typos. But also especially if you
don't have anyone else to ask. My top tip is to definitely
go on Grammarly. You can use that for free. Highlights things
like punctuation and highlights like little
spelling mistakes and like some grammar
mistakes as well. So it's a really good way to kind of make sure
that your cover letter doesn't have any massive errors that are going to write
you off straightaway. Because yes, people literally
just throwaway CVs and cover letters when there are so many applicants that
have spelling mistakes, which I don't
entirely agree with, because some of us actually
speaks multiple languages and life is hard as it is without people being
judgy about it. But I kind of get it as well.
9. How long should you cover letter be: First things first, how long
should your cover letter B? I would say for publishing jobs, one-page is more than
enough unless it's otherwise stated in the
application somewhere. I don't think you need to
write more than one page. Nobody is probably going to read it if you write
more than one page. And to me if I were to receive a cover letter that was
like 23 pages long, I just be like, I don't
have time for this. I need someone who can
actually be concise. I'm not looking for a writer, I'm looking for us
barring publisher. So keep that in mind and
make sure that you keep to one page unless the
job application actually asks you
to do otherwise.
Naroa Filimon, Publishing, Lifestyle, Career
