Resumes: The Proper Time to Personalize a Cover Letter and Why

Writing a cover letter to apply for an employment position can be a painstakingly long and sometimes treacherous process. Especially when you are applying for multiple positions, which, for many unemployed individuals who are seeking out virtually any and every opportunity that looks good for them, is unfortunately all too common the case.

The art of creating a letter that is professional, telling in terms of your personality, and simultaneously effective in demonstrating your worth as a job candidate is one that even some executive level professionals still see as a great job searching challenge. However, as stressful and time consuming as writing the perfect cover letter may be, it is a part of the job seeking process that must not be rushed through. The cover letter is often the first item associated with you that a recruiter or hiring manager sees, before they even skim through the credentials on your resume; the quality and charisma of your words and writing style choice is a factor so powerful that these factors alone may make or break the job opportunity for you altogether. In other words, if your cover letter is horrendously written, or appears generic and/or rushed through with grammatical errors and typos, a recruiter is likely to simply dismiss you as a prospective employee based on that cover letter alone, and move on to the next person without wasting their time on your resume details.

Many people make the big mistake of writing a single cover letter that is general and that can be applied, give or take a few word changes, to several types of positions in the industry in which they are seeking work. While this does minimize your time spent applying to each job and thereby maximizes the amount of jobs you can actually apply to in a short period of time, generic cover letters dramatically decrease the likelihood of you receiving a callback or any expression of further interest, for any of the positions you wrote bulk cover letters to and regarding.