A cover letter is a one-page letter you send with a resume, written to a specific employer about a specific job. The resume lists what you've done; the letter says why it should matter to them. That's the entire concept. Nobody is grading your vocabulary.

When you actually need one

  • Usually skip it: cashier, food service, retail, and most first jobs with an online application form. If the form doesn't ask, the manager isn't reading letters.
  • Usually send it: internships, office and research positions, camp counselor and youth-program roles, and anything where a human being reads applications one by one.
  • Always send it when the posting says to, and follow any instruction inside it exactly. Some postings hide a small request (a word to include, a question to answer) as a test of attention.

The three-paragraph formula

  1. 1Paragraph one: who you are and what you're applying for, in two sentences. “I'm a junior at Lincoln High applying for the summer camp counselor role posted on your site.”
  2. 2Paragraph two: why THIS place. One true, specific detail — you've used their programs, you admire something real about what they do, a person recommended them. This is the paragraph generic letters fail.
  3. 3Paragraph three: one story that proves you'd be good at the actual work, using the same evidence style as a resume bullet. Tutoring your cousins is evidence for a camp job; running a bake-sale table is evidence for retail.

Close with one line: you'd welcome an interview, and your phone number sits at the top with your name. Address it to a person if the posting names one, and “Dear Hiring Manager” when it doesn't. Nobody has been impressed by “To Whom It May Concern” in decades.

Rules that keep it working

  • One page maximum, and short of that is fine. Three tight paragraphs read better than five padded ones.
  • Don't repeat your resume in sentence form. The letter adds the why; the resume already has the what.
  • Reuse your skeleton between applications, but paragraph two must be rewritten every time. That's the paragraph that gets letters read.
  • Same proofreading bar as the resume: one typo in one page reads as carelessness.

A cover letter is three paragraphs of why: why this job, why this place, why you. Write one true specific sentence about the employer and one piece of real evidence about yourself, and you've beaten most of the letters in the pile. A fill-in template is waiting in the Careers kit.