"Letters are expectations packaged in an envelope" Shana Alexander

If your CV is a 30-second advertisement designed to get you invited to an interview; then your cover letter is the first second of that advertisement, which will either cause the reader to sit up and pay attention or to reach for the remote control to change the channel …

Your cover letter is the first thing about you that any employer sees and will therefore form the basis of her/his initial impression of you. A well-presented and structured piece of writing will always favourably dispose the reader to you, so give your cover letters the attention they deserve.

A letter appended to an application or CV should neither be a re-statement of your CV, nor should it be a cursory, “Here's my CV …” note. All too often, cover letters are just ‘dashed off’ and are nasty, generic documents. We all get “Dear Occupant” junk mail in our homes and our e-mail inboxes are stuffed with spam and everybody hates it.

Well hey, what a surprise! Employers feel exactly the same way about “Dear Sir / Madam” or “To whom it may concern” at the top of a cover letter. Spelt the person’s name wrong? They’ve just been promoted and you wrote to them under their old job title? Welcome to the bin!

There is no excuse for sloppiness of that kind. Find these basics out and get them right! Whether your letter is in response to an advertised position or part of a cold-call process to an organisation that you would like to work for, it needs to address three things:

	Why you are writing to them.
	What you have to offer.
	What you would like to happen next.

In three succinct paragraphs. How hard could that be? Let's have a look.