Career toolkit: Writing a cover letter

Learn the step-by-step process to writing a strong cover letter. In this video, you’ll discover how to effectively research a target company and role, prepare key points to include, and craft a personalized cover letter that highlights your strengths. Watch this video to gain the confidence you need to present yourself professionally to potential employers!

Don’t miss our other career toolkit videos on resumes, cover letters, interviewing, networking, and the job search.

Career Toolkit: Elevator Pitches video

Video transcript:

Hello and welcome to MIT Career Advising and Professional Development’s Career Toolkit video series. In this video, I’ll be sharing with you everything that you need to know about getting started on a cover letter. I’m going to be going over a lot of resources, which you can also find on our website at capd.mit.edu. Before we dive in, I wanted to take a minute to share a little bit with you about career services at MIT. You can schedule an appointment on Handshake with a CAPD staff member to talk about any topic, from reviewing your resume and cover letter for academia or industry, to navigating career decisions, like choice of major and grad school. We also help students with internship and job searching, preparing for interview and networking conversations, and understanding job offers and preparing for negotiations. You can explore our website– again, that’s capd.mit.edu– to explore resources on these topics and learn more.

To schedule an appointment, click on “Career Center” in Handshake. There you will see a button for “Appointments”, and you can schedule a new appointment. You will select the type of appointment you need, and you can see available time slots. Appointments vary in length, but most are between 30 minutes to an hour to accommodate your schedule. Appointments are also offered year-round. If you have an urgent need or don’t find a time that works for your schedule, you can email capd@mit.edu to find possible options.

Let’s go ahead and get started. First, we’re going to talk about what a cover letter is. When applying for a job, you are going to have to prepare a number of materials for employers. One type of document is the cover letter, which is included with your resume when requesting a job interview or indicating your interest in a particular role. An effective cover letter is directed towards a specific company or position and describes examples from your past experience that highlight your skills related to that particular role. So that means this is a curated or a tailored document that is specific to that particular target role. You want to convince the reader that your interest in the job and the company, are both specific and genuine. You also want to demonstrate ways that your experience has prepared you for the role by sharing some examples or brief stories that highlight your qualifications.

One question that I get a lot is, “do I need to write a cover letter?” I would say, in most cases, “YES”, but it can depend on the company or the industry. You want to make sure that you are reading the requirements of a particular job application. If an employer explicitly states that they do not want a cover letter or they don’t have a way for you to submit one, then you’re off the hook. You don’t have to write a cover letter. But in most cases, yes. Sources show that most employers believe that cover letters are important in the hiring process, meaning that if it’s between you and another candidate, the employer will reference your application materials to help with that hiring decision.

In this presentation, I will be going over a four-step process for writing an effective cover letter, which starts with– and it’s really important to dedicate some time to both research and preparation. Research is at the foundation of it, and preparation takes time. It takes reflection. It takes thinking things through; but if you dedicate some time to both of these first two steps, then writing should actually be pretty easy when these first two steps are done. Then, of course, you want to review your cover letter; and we’ll be going through all of these in a little bit more detail.

As I mentioned, the research part of the process is something that will take time. The information that you will gather through the research process will help you to develop a perspective, and, in turn, will help you to customize your cover letter and the tone of your cover letter. You want to start with reading the job description carefully. When you’re doing this, you can underline key words or phrases to get a good sense of what the person in this role will be doing and then understand the skills required and the importance of those skills to the role. Then you can use a combination of the employer’s website, social media, or other online sources, like Google or Glassdoor, to get a better sense of the company culture, the company’s mission, and any products or services that are integral to the role that you are applying for.

Then, I always recommend connecting with industry contacts as well to help you gain perspective on the company’s culture and get a more firsthand perspective and any advice on what the employer might be expecting. The Alumni Advisors Hub is a great resource for doing this – I recommend this to students every day. It’s a website where you can connect directly with alumni by booking appointments with them. You can actually get advice on your cover letter or a resume, you can have general career conversations with alumni as well, and more. LinkedIn’s MIT alumni page is another great way to connect with alum.

After you’ve done your research, you want to take the information that you gathered and use it to help you prepare for your pitch. In terms of the employer, some information that would be helpful to have are things like the company mission and values, the company culture, any products or services that they’re using that would be integral to the role. Then, in terms of the role, you want to make sure you understand any transferable skills that they’re looking for, any technical skills that they’re looking for, and what the key responsibilities of the role are.

After you’ve gathered that information, you should take some time to reflect on the following questions. First and foremost, “why do I want to work for this employer?” You should have maybe one to two main reasons why you’re interested in this particular employer or role because that’s where you can demonstrate, in your cover letter, your genuine connection to the role, and it can allow you to tailor it in a specific way. Then you want to think about, “what are the most important skills for this role, and what have I done that demonstrates that I have those skills?” So in other words, you’re looking for the overlap between the role and your skills based on your experiences.

Now it’s time to write out your cover letter. Starting with the introduction – and just so you know, I’ll go through three main parts of the writing of the cover letter, which include the introduction, the body paragraphs, and the conclusion. Starting with the introduction, the main objective here is to get the reader pulled in and to give them some high level information that you are going to elaborate on more in your next couple of paragraphs. Start with your greeting. If you know the name of the person to which you are addressing the letter, you can include their name. If you don’t know the name, you can use something like, “Dear Hiring Committee” or “Dear Hiring Manager.” I usually tell people to stay away from “To Whom It May Concern” just because it’s a little impersonal.

Then you want to make sure that you clearly state the role that you are applying for. If there’s a reference number for that particular role, you may want to include that in this paragraph – that would just be in parentheses after the name of the position – and that’s usually for tracking purposes, especially if you’re applying for more than one position within a company. Then you want to express why you’re interested in the company. So that’s where you’re connecting it back to the mission, the values, any current industry trends. This would also be a good time to mention a reference if you have one. So if you spoke with a recruiter at the career fair, or maybe you made a connection through the alumni network and they’ve given you permission to use them as a reference, this might be a good place to do that. Then you’re going to highlight your main skills and strengths related to the role. So I like to think about this like a high level thesis statement that points to what you will elaborate on in your body paragraphs.

Next, we have our body paragraphs. I have an example of one body paragraph here, and you may make a decision to have two body paragraphs or three body paragraphs. I’d say at least two body paragraphs is usually standard. The main objective here, in your body paragraphs, is to give the reader a clearer picture of how your experience relates to the particular role. You want to elaborate on your experience without just reiterating your resume. That’s probably the biggest mistake that I see when reviewing cover letters is that people will tend to repeat what’s on their resume. So, I recommend taking some time to think about what you’ve learned through experiences as opposed to what you did or accomplished, because what you did and what you accomplished are on your resume. You want to elaborate on those experiences in a way that tells a story about them or links experiences together and describes how the unique combination of them has helped you to learn relevant skills. And you want to make sure that you also are explicitly connecting it to the target role. How will those past experiences help you excel at “X” responsibilities as part of the role?

Last is your closing paragraph or your conclusion. With this paragraph, you are trying to succinctly remind the reader why you are a great candidate for the role. So you’re really not introducing anything majorly new here. You are simply restating your interest and your fit for the role and thanking the reader for their time and consideration. There is no need to add contact information here in the closing paragraph as that is usually included in the header of your cover letter, in your resume, or in your application itself.

Next is reviewing. This is a very important part of the process. I recommend proofreading for spelling errors, grammar, and accuracy. If a student comes in to review a cover letter with me, I usually like to read it out loud, and I recommend you do the same. This can help to gauge fluidity of the letter, tone, and comprehensibility… And ask for feedback. You can book a CAPD cover letter review with one of our advisors. You can also book a review with the alumni advisors through the Alumni Advisors Hub. The MIT Writing and Communication Center is a great resource; and if you have other industry contacts or a friend, ask for feedback throughout the process. At the end of the day, it’s your cover letter and you have to stand by it. So take feedback from people, but do what works best for you.

We’re going to wrap it up with some cover letter dos and don’ts, starting with keep it brief. Usually, a cover letter is around a page or under, and you should use a 10- to 12-size font. With that, you want to make sure that you format it similar to your resume, from font, to heading, to margin size. It’s nice when everything looks uniform as part of your application materials. You should address your letter directly to the hiring manager, as we mentioned. You want to tailor to the position and the company, and that’s a reminder to do your research so you can speak to those things; and you want to focus on your strengths, your passion, and your skills.

With that, we have some don’ts as well. Don’t repeat your resume bullet points. You’re elaborating on what’s on your resume, but not saying exactly the same thing. Don’t start with “To Whom It May Concern.” It’s impersonal. Use “Dear Hiring Manager,” or the person’s name. Don’t submit a generic cover letter. Make sure that you’re taking the time, if you are submitting a cover letter, to tailor something to the specific role and company; and don’t draw attention to negative details. As I mentioned above, the cover letter is really a place to focus on your strengths, your passion, and your skills. If you do have concerns that you’d like to address in a cover letter, you can certainly speak with a career advisor, and we can help you through how to navigate that in a cover letter.

Moving forward, I leave you with some resources as well as next steps. For resources, I have cover letter writing articles that are available on our website as well as external resources. And all of these will be linked in the video notes and will be available in the PDF version of this presentation.

And for next steps, I will reiterate the importance of connecting with MIT alum – the link there is to the Alumni Advisors Hub. You can also attend an employer event in order to connect with employers and do research about different companies. You can book an appointment on Handshake with a career advisor. And I recommend checking out other career events that we have available through Career Advising and Professional Development.

Thank you so much for your time today, and happy cover letter writing!

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