When it comes to the job search, there&rsquo;s often one factor that determines whether you do or don&rsquo;t move on to the next step in the hiring process: a good cover letter. Rather than using the same cover letter over and over, tailoring a letter for each company and position you&rsquo;re applying for can make all the difference in persuading an employer to invite you to interview.
Here are&nbsp;5 must-haves for a cover letter&nbsp;that will help you land that interview:
1. Address it to a Person&nbsp;&ndash; Ensure your cover letter stands out from the applicant pool by addressing it to a specific individual in the company. Starting a cover letter with &ldquo;To Whom it May Concern,&rdquo; can often dissuade hiring managers from considering applicants, as it can appear less personal. It can also look as if you haven&rsquo;t done your homework. Often a simple Google, LinkedIn, company website search, or email/phone call to the company can help you determine the right point of contact for addressing your letter.
If, after researching, you&rsquo;re unable to find a name, try using, &ldquo;Dear Hiring Team.&rdquo;
2. Incorporate a Strong Opening Statement&nbsp;&ndash; Much like a news story, your opening statement in a cover letter should draw your readers in and make them want to know more. Don&rsquo;t begin your letter by stating what the company already knows, such as the fact you&rsquo;re applying for a job. Instead, focus on selling yourself and why you&rsquo;re interested in working for the company. Or, talk about what impresses you about the company, or any personal connections you may have to the work.
For example, if you are applying to a company that sells products that you use, mention that. If you&rsquo;re impressed by what you&rsquo;ve seen in the news about them, share that in your letter.&nbsp;
3. Focus on your Relevant Experience&nbsp;&ndash; Your cover letter is the place to fill in gaps and elaborate on information outlined in your resume. It&rsquo;s particularly important to use your cover letter to address how your experience aligns with the duties listed in the job description. This includes incorporating specific words and phrases from the job description.
For example, if a position requires project management experience, share an example of how you have either managed a project or exercised the skills needed to do so in your previous work or educational experiences. If it requires knowledge of a specific software or equipment, explain your familiarity with these or similar systems. In general, don&rsquo;t make this section read like a list; rather, provide a few highlights based on your strengths in specific areas.
4. Display Personality &amp; Passion&nbsp;&ndash; Once again, your cover letter serves as a tool for an employer to get to know you in hopes they will extend an invitation to interview. This means going beyond the facts listed in your resume to display a bit of personality. It can also be a tool to express your passion for the organization&rsquo;s work.
It&rsquo;s important in your letter to base your tone on both the position you&rsquo;re applying for and the company&rsquo;s culture. If applying for a legal position at a high-powered law firm, you should likely err on the side of formality in your cover letter writing. If you&rsquo;re applying for a position at a graphic design firm whose clients are comprised of small businesses and local non-profits, perhaps use a more conversational tone.
Ultimately, research remains critical. Determine the culture and personality of the company and align your tone accordingly.
5. Disclose Your Disability, if it&rsquo;s Relevant&nbsp;&ndash; Today, many employers have hiring goals and recruitment initiatives designed to increase their number of employees with disabilities. As companies continue to recognize the benefits of hiring people with disabilities, they&rsquo;re doing targeted outreach to reach job seekers with disabilities. Thus, if a job posting specifically encourages people with disabilities to apply, feel free to discuss your disability in the cover letter. While not a requirement, in cases like these, disclosing a disability can be an advantage.
When choosing to disclose a disability in a cover letter, ground the letter in your ability to perform the job functions well. Focus on how your disability can be an asset to the employer, rather than how it could potentially prevent you from meeting the job requirements. Save any requests for accommodations or other needs until time to confirm your interview.
Crafting your cover letter with these must-haves can greatly influence your potential to get in front of hiring managers for an interview. For more guidance on how to write an effective cover letter,&nbsp;contact the CareerCircle team.
Contributions to this blog were made by Andra&eacute;a LaVant of Solutions Marketing Group.

Discover insightful articles on building inclusive work environments and fostering diverse talent communities.

5 Must-Haves for an Effective Cover Letter

An impactful experience summary can help your CareerCircle profile show up to hiring managers and make sure that your resume highlights the most important experience for a role.&nbsp;But it can be difficult to get started trying to condense all of your skills and experience into a couple of sentences.
In this blog post, we&rsquo;re going to take you through what makes an effective experience summary and the 3 step framework you can follow to write your own. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">What Is an Experience Summary?</h2>
 Sometimes called a <a href="https://novoresume.com/career-blog/resume-summary" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">resume summary</a> or executive summary, an experience summary is a 2 - 5 sentence synopsis of your work experience, achievements, and top skills. It is a paragraph at the top of your resume to help recruiters and hiring managers contextualize your experience.&nbsp;It is often responsible for piquing the interest of the recruiter/hiring manager enough to get them to continue reading.
Talent platforms, like CareerCircle, also use experience summaries as part of your candidate profile which helps hiring managers find you on the platform. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">What Makes an Effective Experience Summary?</h2>
<h3> Keep It Short</h3>
Keep your summary around 2 - 3 sentences. If you have a lot of experience, you can go up to 5 short sentences. Remember, you don&rsquo;t need to follow particular grammar rules so feel free to edit the sentences down to their bare essentials.
<h3> Embrace Keywords</h3>
Keywords are the words or phrases that people use to search a database (like Google or an ATS).&nbsp;Using <a href="https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/resume-keywords-and-phrases" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">keywords in your experience summary</a>, and throughout your resume, helps your resume show up better when a recruiter is searching an Applicant Tracking System (ATS).&nbsp;
To brainstorm the keywords you should use, look at the requirements on the job posting. Chances are there are keywords hidden in plain sight like, &ldquo;budget management&rdquo; or &ldquo;digital marketing.&rdquo;
<h3> Tailored and Optimized</h3>
When you are working on tailoring your resume, make sure to optimize your resume summary for the particular role, too.&nbsp;You don't need to take a lot of time! Your summary should include things like 5 years of experience if the posting calls for 5 years of experience, any software tools that are specifically mentioned, languages, etc.
Remember: Your CareerCircle profile is the perfect place to house your experience summary. When you are applying for a new job you can simply copy, paste, and edit it onto your resume as needed! 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">How to Write Your Experience Summary</h2>
 Let&rsquo;s go step-by-step through writing your experience summary. In this example, we&rsquo;ll be building a summary for an implementation manager who has about almost 5 years of experience in the software-as-a-service industry, but you can apply the framework to any profession.
<h3> Start with the Basics</h3>
In the opening sentence, mention your job title or the one that&rsquo;s on the job posting, your years of experience, and a quick overview of what you do. 
<blockquote>
Resourceful implementation manager with 4+ years of experience onboarding SaaS users.
</blockquote>
<h3> Highlight Certificates and Skills</h3>
Move on to sharing any appropriate education and certificates you have (especially if the job posting calls for something specific) and showcase a technical skill or two. 
<blockquote>
Resourceful implementation manager with 4+ years of experience onboarding SaaS users. Bachelor&rsquo;s degree in Computer Science and a Google Career Certificate in IT Support with extensive experience in Microsoft Office and SQL.
</blockquote>
<h3> Wrap Up with Achievements</h3>
Pull the most impressive achievements from your resume to close out your summary. 
<blockquote>
Resourceful implementation manager with 4+ years of experience onboarding SaaS users. Bachelor&rsquo;s degree in Computer Science and a Google Career Certificate in IT Support with extensive experience in Microsoft Office and SQL. Career highlights include building an automation process to track and organize support requests resulting in a 95% customer satisfaction rate and improving retention by 54% YoY.
</blockquote>
 Don't have quantifiable data? Applying for an entry-level position? Focus more on some extra skills you can bring to the role. This can be a great time to mention softer skills like time management or communication. 
<blockquote>
Resourceful implementation manager with 4+ years of experience onboarding SaaS users. Bachelor&rsquo;s degree in Computer Science and a Google Career Certificate in IT Support with extensive experience in Microsoft Office and SQL. Skilled at managing multiple competing priorities at one time and bringing strategy to ambiguous situations.
</blockquote>
 Remember: If you find yourself at a loss, you can always start by using a tool like Bard AI. Feed in the prompt, &ldquo;Create a 3-sentence summary of this resume:&rdquo; and then copy in your resume. For more tips on how to use AI in your job search, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/careercircle/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">check out our LinkedIn</a>.
 Ultimately, your experience summary is another opportunity to highlight what you&rsquo;ve done in the past and how it relates to what you can bring to the role.&nbsp;
By taking the time to create an impactful summary, you can feel confident that you are proving your worth to every job you apply for!

In this blog post, we’re going to take you through the 3 step framework to write your own experience summary.

How to Write an Impactful Experience Summary

In this blog post, we’re going to take you through what makes an effective experience summary and the 3 step framework you can follow to write your own.

Career coaches help guide your job search by sharing industry knowledge and making sure you feel confident every step of the way.
But in order to make the most of those sessions, you need to know these key things. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">What Is Career Coaching?</h2>
First up...what even is career coaching?
Career coaching is when a professional career coach and jobseeker/employee work together to help the jobseeker reach their goals. Career coaches can help you uncover what you&rsquo;re interested in doing when it comes to your career and can provide resources to help you map out how to upskill or reskill depending on your goals, feel more confident in your career, and more.
Most often career coaches have formal work experience guiding people through their career journeys, like a recruiter or HR professional.
When it comes to selecting a career coach, it&rsquo;s important to find someone who has experience and success in your chosen career path. Some coaches specialize in helping people set goals, which is helpful if you're unsure about your journey. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Is Career Coaching Worth It?</h2>
While it will be different for every person, career coaching can be perfect if you&rsquo;re looking for:
<ul>
<li>Personalized career advice based on your past experience and future goals</li>
<li>Guidance on how your values and goals align with a new career path</li>
<li>Advice about upskilling in your current role</li>
<li>Resume editing and portfolio auditing</li>
<li>And more!</li>
</ul>
One of the most important things to remember is that<a href="https://www.betterup.com/blog/benefits-of-coaching" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank"> career coaching is not about being interviewed for a role</a>. Many people think that by working with a career coach you&rsquo;re guaranteed a role, but career coaching sessions are an advice session for your career.
Some career coaches may have a networking aspect of their work that allows you to connect with people who may be hiring. But ultimately, they are there to help coach you on your journey, not provide a job.
If you&rsquo;re on the fence about working with a career coach but still want to seek out an expert, consider reaching out to a mentor. A mentor is someone who has had a similar career path that you&rsquo;d like and is open to sharing more about their story and providing advice based on their experience with you.
If you&rsquo;re working with a mentor, you can prepare for your meetings the same way that you&rsquo;d prepare for a career coaching session! 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">4 Things to Do Before a Career Coaching Session</h2>
<h3> Reflect on Your Experience and Consider Your Goals</h3>
When you&rsquo;re going into a career coaching session, it&rsquo;s valuable to<a href="https://www.themuse.com/advice/how-to-ensure-you-get-the-most-out-of-your-first-session-with-a-career-coach-aka-your-moneys-worth" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank"> reflect on your past work experience and what sort of goals you have for your future</a>.
Ask yourself questions like:
<ul>
<li>What are your values when it comes to your work?&nbsp;</li>
<li>How do your goals align with your values?</li>
<li>What do you want to do for a living and why?</li>
<li>How do you want your career to fit into your life?</li>
<li>What skills and experience do you have that can map to those goals?</li>
</ul>
If you have particular goals in mind, the career coaching session can be better geared towards what you&rsquo;re trying to achieve, but if you are unsure what sort of role you want, never fear! Career coaches can help you discover a good career path by using your skills and understanding your preferences from past jobs.
<h3> Prepare Questions To Ask</h3>
So long as it has to do with your career, there really isn&rsquo;t a limit to what questions you can ask.&nbsp;
Since career coaches often have experience working as a recruiter or HR professional, they&rsquo;ve often worked on hiring teams before which means they can share that expertise with you. You can check in on how a particular career may align with your values or the correct way to format a resume.
Remember to keep your questions limited to the time you have allotted for your session. If you&rsquo;ve only got 15 minutes, it may not be the best time to try to uncover what your lifelong career goals are, but that&rsquo;s a great amount of time to learn how to format a bullet point on your resume so that it highlights your accomplishments.
<h3> Have Your Resume at the Ready</h3>
You should always have your most current resume and contact information available to the career coach when you schedule the session. That will allow them to do their research so they can provide a more catered experience.
Your <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/resume-builder" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">resume</a> should include your contact information, work experience, any certificates or training that&rsquo;s pertinent to your goals, and your technical/hard skills like software programs or coding languages you know. If you need help building your resume, <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/the-5-resume-tips-recruiters-want-you-to-know" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">check out this blog post</a>.
You should also ensure that your LinkedIn and CareerCircle profiles are up to date with<a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/how-to-verify-your-google-career-certificate-in-careercircle" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank"> all certificates listed and verified</a>.
<h3> Mentally Prepare for Feedback</h3>
In your career coaching session, you will likely get feedback about what you&rsquo;re doing well as well as suggestions for what you can do differently. Hearing criticism, no matter how constructive and helpful it is, can be hard so mentally prepare yourself.
Remind yourself that career coaches are there to help you reach all of your goals and that often means doing things differently. If you didn&rsquo;t need to change things up, you probably wouldn&rsquo;t have reached out to a professional so be willing to hear and take on their advice.
 Taking a bit of extra time to prepare for a career coaching session will make sure that you get the most out of it and can take the next step in your career confidently.
For more resources about job searching, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/careercircle/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">check out our LinkedIn</a> where we share daily job search tips!

Taking a bit of extra time to prepare for a career coaching session will make sure that you get the most out of it and can take the next step in your career confidently.

4 Things to Do Before a Career Coaching Session

4 Things To Do Before a Career Coaching Session

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*UPGRADE IN PROGRESS* -- CareerCircle is upgrading its capabilities and as a result the system may be temporarily unavailable as we bring new capabilities and infrastructure online to better serve our members.&nbsp; If you receive an error during this timeframe please bear with us as we're working to improve our system and you may need to retry that operation at a later time.&nbsp; &nbsp;

Resume Prep

7 Articles

5 Must-Haves for an Effective Cover Letter

How to Write an Impactful Experience Summary

4 Things To Do Before a Career Coaching Session

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