It’s all about being creative, different and noteworthy. People remember a great story. It stays with them, and you never leave their mind.

You don’t need to be a literary giant to pen a winning cover letter. You just have to think like one

So I decided to buck the idea of the traditional cover letter and instead to tell the story of my greatest accomplishment. In telling this story my aptitude, my work style and my personality all come across clearly in just about three short paragraphs. In the remaining two I explain how this relates back to the mission of the organization and my qualifications for the position. (Luckily most of the positions I apply for are related to what I am passionate about).

When I shared this cover letter style with my dad his response surprised me. He said, “I was engaged from the very beginning and it pulled me through reading every subsequent paragraph.” Thanks for writing this post and articulating this in such a great way. I’ll be sure to share it with others!

Clearly – this isn’t the best approach to job hunting.

Then I learned that you’re supposed to tailor your cover letters, show how your work experience is relevant to the job at hand. So I tried that, but immediately became burnt out, trying to re-create my (limited) work history into something professionally relevant.

Now – I have read this. Telling a story to show my passion (versus trying to glam up my work history) is significantly more fun and a better way to weed out job openings. I’m almost at the point where I’ll take anything, but realizing that applying to jobs can at least be momentarily interesting (if not outright fun) has made me feel a little bit better about the whole process.

Thanks for your post!