One of the best ways to highlight your skills to a potential employer is writing an effective resume covering letter. Most of the applicants fail to include a cover letter with their resume and this mistake should be avoided if you are desperately looking forward to find good placement in a company/organization. A well-written letter attached with the resume can explain the employer about your ability to take up the job. This does not mean that you are going to re-write your resume through the cover letter. Rather, the letter should pay attention to your key skills that would match the requirement of the organization. Some of the secrets for writing an attention-grabbing cover letter for your resume are given below:

• Address your cover letter to a person and not to the company as a whole:

If you address your letter to an appropriate person, the employer can understand your professional approach. Most of the applicants use the words ‘whom it may concern’. Rather than using these types of words, it would be better to address the letter to the concerned person and you can obtain the name of the person from the advertisement given by the company. If no such name is given in the advertisement, you can call the HR department of the organization and can find the name of the person to whom the letter should be addressed.

• Focus your covering letter to the job announcement:

Rather than using unwanted sentences in the cover letter, try to be precise by including information about your special skills pertaining to the job announcement given by the organization.

• Provide answer for two important questions in your cover letter:

You should not forget to provide answers to the two important questions arising in the mind of an employer when viewing your cover letter and they are ‘what values you will add to the establishment if you are selected? and ‘why are you sending your application to the organization?’ If your cover letter provides perfect answers to these questions, it will create an impression among the interviewers that you are a serious candidate really interested in taking up a position in their organization.

• Use appropriate finishing sentences:

In the closing sentences of your resume covering letter, do not forget to thank the employer for their consideration and time. Also, reinforce your interest in taking up a position in the organization.

• Rather than typing your signature, you can hand-sign it.

Finally, take some time to proof-read your resume covering letter and you can get the help of your friend for this purpose since if your letter has some incorrect spelling or grammar it would be unprofessional.

For more tips and advices on creating an effective Resume Covering Letter, chat live with Experts on eZdia.

Mr. Ketan Gandhi :

Post graduate program from IIM-A (Top rank b-school in India), participated in Harvard Business School s executive education program and a corporate trainer.

Abhimanyu Sharma : Career Professional from California

Reymerlyn A. Martin : Career counselor on eZdia