I spent 4 years writing cover letters completely wrong

So I was on a call with my cousin who works in HR for a big company in Austin and she asked to see my cover letter draft. After she read it she just laughed and said I was basically writing a book report about myself instead of showing how I solve problems. She told me hiring managers spend like 6 seconds on each one and they just want to see a specific example of me fixing something. I rewrote it using her tips and got two callbacks in the first week after sending out 12 applications. Has anyone else had a moment where you realized your whole approach was backwards?

2 comments

2 Comments

kevinc845h ago

Yeah that hits close to home. I was doing the same thing for like two years, just listing out my responsibilities and hoping someone would notice. My buddy who's a recruiter in Dallas finally told me the same thing your cousin said, that I was basically writing an autobiography instead of talking about their problems and how I fix them. Soon as I switched to "here's a time I saved my old company X amount of money" or "here's how I cut their processing time in half" I started getting way more interest. It's wild how we all just assume we know how to do this stuff until someone actually in the field sets us straight.

jesse_craig266h ago

Switched from listing duties to showing specific results and my response rate tripled.