Traditionally, resumés are where you crap out all of your experience onto 1 or 2 pages of 8 ½” x 11” processed tree parts. They are impersonal and just state your version of the truth. Hopefully they sway the reader to react like a miner who has panned a nugget in the 1860’s.
Traditionally, a cover letter is where the appeal is made stating why you should be picked and is often much more personable. The cover letter is you putting out your cupped hands and asking for more gruel like Oliver Twist, with heartfelt words intended to turn the darkest hiring hearts into rainbows, unicorns and sugar plumbs.
Traditionally, many traditions suck and much like iPhone screens they will eventually be broken. Time to kick tradition in the nuts.
THE SKINNY
As much as we would like to believe, most hiring managers do not read cover letters. Some hiring managers refuse to look at resumés if they are not accompanied by a cover letter, but they still don’t bother to read them. At most they may glance at it to make sure you spelled your name correctly, but that’s about it.
Much like you when you receive a birthday card, you don’t bother to read the card but instead open it up to see how much the check is. You don’t care what Hallmark has to say, but you do care about making some bank. This is how I feel most employers view cover letters. So why waste your time on such a trivial and needless exercise?
As I have pointed out in an earlier post, the cover letter, much like a bloody chainsaw, can be a very effective tool for making a lasting impression.
THE COVER LETTER
The Cover Letter should be quite impersonal and should only point out where the job qualifications and your skillset align. An effective cover letter points this out in a table-like format with one column of qualifications and another column with your skills. You are doing the Hiring Manager’s work for them by making that connection. Would you rather have the Hiring Manager spend the requisite 30 seconds looking at your cover letter and see that you are the best candidate or try to weed it out of a 3 page resumé detailing your job duties which included pencil sharpening and toaster repair in the breakroom? If someone is making my job easier, they are probably worth talking to.
Your Cover Letter shouldn’t say anything else except for naming the job that you are applying and that’s it.
THE RESUME
The Resumé is your time to shine and should highlight all of the things that make you awesome. I have laid out some resumé tips here. The resumé should serve to point out your professional accomplishments, good works and job history. It actually should be more personal as the reader should have an idea how you helped prior employers in the past along with the other majestic deeds that you have accomplished.
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As I have stated in other articles, (like here and here) accomplishments should be quantified. If you saved the company money, how much? If sales increased because of you then by what percentage? If you supervised an entire department, how many people were supervised. The thing is the numbers will speak to your accomplishment and are much more believable than fluffy vague B.S. Still, use real numbers and don’t lie! Lies are prickly things that have a way of coming back to bite you in the ass!