Written by karriere tutor®
The cover letter of an application is, next to the resume, the most important door opener for an interview. We will show you which contents absolutely belong in a successful application and how you can formulate your own with the help of three examples for your application letter.
This belongs in your application
When you apply to a company, the written form is still the most common way, even if the written documents are now usually mailed or often uploaded to online application portals. The majority of companies even explicitly state in their job advertisements that only digital applications are desired.
Tip: When applying by e-mail, please do not forget to refer to the job advertisement in the e-mail itself. This letter, however, should be much shorter than the actual cover letter. Also make sure you have a value-neutral email address and include a signature in the mail (consisting of first and last name as well as address and phone number).
The following things classically belong in an application:
- Cover letter (also called motivation letter)
- Resume (with photo)
- Testimonials
Keeping it short and setting milestones
For the Cover letter and the Resume Clearly applies: Brevity is the spice of life. The cover letter should not be longer than one page (font size 12 in Word or text documents). You can orientate yourself on a classic letter format with address field. This way the given space is clearly defined.
Your resume (also called CV or "Curriculum Vitae") should not exceed two pages, although this applies more to applicants with several years of professional experience. As an entry-level professional, you can limit yourself to a single Word page. At the same time, it should also contain the minimum amount of information about your previous activities.
Tip: Focus on the main tasks and achievements of your professional career, which prove that you have the required skills for the advertised position. How to avoid unnecessary passages. And if it ends up being three pages, this has not yet led to a rejection if you are suitably qualified.
As you can see, there is not much room left to convince your dream employer of your abilities. So focus on these when writing your cover letter, As compact as possible Convey why you are so interesting as an applicant and why the potential employer should hire you Interview should invite. In fact Investigations, that recruiters not even one minute per resume Take to classify it as "relevant" or "not relevant". Our following three examples therefore provide inspiration for a compact and convincing cover letter for a job application.
Sample structure for cover letter
No matter what job it is: There are certain factors that recruiters pay special attention to in a job application. This includes:
- the reference to the company (not to the contents of the job advertisement)!),
- the qualification of the applicant,
- personal motivation.
We address all three of these factors in our sample applications. It is helpful if you put the reference to the company like a kind of bracket around your cover letter. The sample cover letter structure is as follows:
Introduce how you became aware of the position or why you are applying to this company.
Then continue with your qualifications and motivation to actively invite people to talk to you at the end.
If you keep these three points in mind, you’ll be well on your way to formulating a compelling cover letter.
Professional tip from Martin Saidi: "Before you start writing, make sure you also know the name of the contact person for the position you’re applying to. Personnel managers attach great importance to the personal salutation in the cover letter. If this is not mentioned in the advertisement, call the company and ask for it. At the same time, you have the excellent opportunity to briefly introduce yourself to your contact person and make a positive impression. At best, he or she will then remember you right away when he or she has your application documents on hand."
Sample cover letter for an application as office assistant
An office help position often requires few technical qualifications and allows career changers to gain a foothold in a new field of work. In such a case, you can be particularly convincing by emphasizing your own motivation and any successes you may have achieved even without a relevant professional qualification. For example like this:
Dear<Salutation and Name>,
Your company has been successful on the market for a long time and stands for high quality products. I would like to contribute to this success as a reliable office assistant in the future.
After my training as a confectioner I changed my orientation and joined a medium-sized company. There I quickly took over the handling of all correspondence, arranged on-site appointments with customers and wrote offers. I really enjoyed working in the office and was able to play a large part in increasing the number of incoming bookings by 15 percent within a year. Since I have moved in the meantime, I am looking for a new job in the region. I would be happy to use my organizational skills to ensure that everything runs smoothly in your office, so that your employees can concentrate fully on their work.
I am already looking forward to talking to you personally and discussing how I can best support you.
With kind regards
<Your name as scanned signature>
IT Project Manager Cover Letter Template
If you are applying as an IT project manager, you should inform yourself particularly well about the company in advance and find out what methods, systems and tools are used there. Because then you can go into detail and score points in your application. An example of such a cover letter is this one:
Dear<Salutation and Name>,
as I read in your ad on XING, you are looking for an IT project manager with a Scrum® certification.
Because I am an IT professional at heart and at the same time I am looking for a challenge, I recently completed a further training course to become an IT specialist Technical Expert . In the process, I learned the key components of project setup and execution with Scrum®. Programming with C++ and managing complex IT projects were also important components of the course. Because of this combination, I know both the developer’s side and the project management’s side very well. Now I would like to use this knowledge to advance your projects. Achieving the best result for your company and your customers is my benchmark here.
Let’s find out together how we can keep your company on the road to success. I would be very pleased if we could do this in a personal meeting.
Yours sincerely
<Your name as a scanned signature>
Sample cover letter for recruiter
In a position like that of a personnel officer, your personal skills are particularly important, in addition to your technical skills. Because the recruiter communicates with employees, team leads and management alike. Therefore, make sure that you emphasize not only your technical skills, but also your methodological and social skills when formulating a cover letter for such a job. An example of such an application follows here:
Dear<Salutation and Name>,
from my acquaintance<first name last name> I have learned that you would like to expand your personnel team and are looking for competent support.
As a personnel officer with ten years of professional experience, I am very familiar with the common processes in the HR area and am also familiar with the regulations for home office, which you make possible for your employees, familiar. In my work, it is particularly important to me to deal with the concerns of all parties involved in a personal and appreciative way. As a recruiter with additional qualifications in the Conflict Management I see myself as the central interface between applicants, employees, managers and the executive level and use my expertise for the benefit of all. With me, you will gain an employee who will use his full commitment to promote people as the most important resource of any company in the best possible way.
I would be very happy if we could have a personal conversation to go deeper into what is most important to you in HR and how I can support you in achieving this.
Yours sincerely
<Your name as scanned signature>
Individual cover letters are convincing
The three cover letter examples show that there is no single pattern that always applies. Use the bracket we presented and always adapt the content in the middle part to the particular company as well. Because then your counterpart will sense that you are really interested in this job and did not send an "08/15" version to several companies. Good luck!