How to write a cover letter that gets read
5 min read
Plenty of recruiters skip cover letters. Plenty read them when two candidates look alike on paper, and many applicant tracking systems store them alongside the resume where a hiring manager will see them. A short letter costs you ten minutes and occasionally wins the interview.
The structure that works
Four paragraphs, under 250 words in total. Anything longer is competing with the resume, which the reader already has.
- One: the role you are applying for and, in a single sentence, the strongest reason you fit it.
- Two: one concrete achievement that maps to the main requirement in the posting, with its result.
- Three: why this employer specifically - something you can only know by having looked at them.
- Four: availability and a plain closing line.
Open with the fit, not with yourself
I am writing to apply for the position of wastes the line that decides whether the rest is read. So does I am a hard-working and motivated professional, which every other applicant also wrote.
Open with the match: Your posting asks for someone who can rebuild a reporting stack while keeping the weekly numbers flowing. I did exactly that at PayFast last year, moving thirty reports onto a new warehouse with no interruption to the weekly close.
Prove you looked at the company
One sentence is enough, and it has to be something that could not be copied into another letter: a product they launched, a market they entered, a problem their sector is facing that you have handled.
Generic admiration - your reputation for excellence - reads worse than saying nothing, because it demonstrates that you did not look.
Do not repeat the resume
The letter exists to add context the resume cannot carry: why you are changing field, why you are relocating, why a gap exists, why an unusual background fits this specific role.
If your letter would still make sense with the company name swapped out, it is not doing any work.
Format and send
Match the letter to the resume - same font, same header with your contact details - and send it as PDF unless the employer asks otherwise. If you are applying by email, put the letter in the body as well, because attachments get opened second.
Address a person where you can find one. Dear Hiring Manager is acceptable; Dear Sir or Madam is dated; To Whom It May Concern signals a mass application.
The email version
When you apply by email, the letter is the email. Put it in the body, attach the resume, and keep the subject line factual: Application - Operations Manager - Imran Khan.
Do not attach a letter and write see attached in the body. That is one more click between a busy reader and the reason to open your resume.
When a letter is worth real effort
Three cases repay the time: a career change, an application where you are missing one stated requirement, and a smaller employer where a person rather than a system reads applications.
In each, the letter does something your resume structurally cannot - it explains. For a routine application through a large portal, keep it short and move on.
Proof before you send
Check the company name is the right company, the role title matches the advert, and the letter does not still carry a sentence aimed at someone else. This is the most common and most fatal error in cover letters.
Read it out loud once. Anything you would not say to a person across a desk comes out of the letter.
Common questions
Does anyone actually read cover letters?
Some recruiters never do, some always do, and most read them when they are deciding between similar candidates. The cost of a short one is low and the downside of skipping it when it was expected is losing the application.
How long should a cover letter be?
Under 250 words, four short paragraphs, comfortably inside one page. Nobody has ever rejected a candidate for brevity here.
Should I use AI to write it?
Use it to draft and tighten, then put in the specifics only you know - the achievement, the number, the reason for this employer. A letter that reads as generic is worse than none, whoever wrote it.