Cover Letters - What is the Appropriate and Most Effective Length?

Feb 24
09:47

2010

Bobby Johnson

Bobby Johnson

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Ever heard of the phrase "less is more?" This is definitely the rule that applies when it comes to writing a cover letter for any job opportunity. Always remember that the idea of a cover letter is to give a quick introduction of yourself and a brief run-through of the most important points and aspects of your resume. Do not just summarize your resume. Your resume should be able to stand alone.

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Your CV letter should be used to bring specific points of interest to the hiring manager's attention. The hiring manager will be swamped with many other CV letters,Cover Letters - What is the Appropriate and Most Effective Length?  Articles and reading the same, boring, repetitive cliches over and over again will become mundane. You want to make sure that your CV letter is to the point, concise and informative, but also make sure that it is attention-grabbing.

Your CV letter should "WOW" the person reading it and make them want to know more about you!

With this being said, one page is plenty of text to make your cover letter compelling and informative. You want to make sure to eliminate excessive, repetitive words, and keep your CV letter to around four paragraphs of three sentences or so. This way, you keep the hiring manager reading without hitting them with a huge block of text that will bore them.

The general rule of thumb is that a hiring manager spends around 20 seconds running through a CV letter to make a decision of whether or not they want to interview a perspective employee-so keep it short and sweet!

On a very rare occasion is it acceptable to let your CV letter extend to a second page. Cover letters are meant to summarize the best points of your resume and be compelling enough to support the reasoning for a job interview, If you are applying for a more "senior position" within a company, or a position that requires a lot of technical or specific qualifications, you may need to run onto a second page. Avoid at all costs, but if you must, make sure your cover letter is still concise, relevant and contains the "WOW" factor.

So, now you know how long to write your cover letter, but what and how do you write it? Learn How to Write a Cover Letter by following me over to http://www.simple-cover-letters.info right NOW!