Online Signature Legality for Email Cover Letter

How to eSign a document: online signature legality for Email Cover Letter

- How do you write a cover letter that gets read and gets you the job interview. In this video, I'll be teaching you the exact cover letter formula that has helped thousands of people land jobs and can make your cover letter as short as three sentences. This is Self Made Millennial, I'm Madeline Mann, I am a human resources leader and job search strategies. You may have seen me in these places, new videos on Thursdays. A cover letter can be the deciding factor on whether or not you land the first interview. And contrary to popular belief, it doesn't have to be a long drawn out sonnet and I am a pentameter okay. Check out here Jeanette who used this cover letter formula and said it was the first time it didn't feel like painful drudgery, yes! And stay at the end because I will teach you how to do the Fluff Test on your cover letters to determine if it's effective or not. This will help you to realize if your cover letter needs some major edits, or if you're on the right track Mack. Two very common ways to start a cover letter is, "To whom it may concern." Or the classic, "Dear sir or madam." You certainly will never be accused of not being professional with these, but they're a bit formal and generic. The best option to say in my perspective is, "Dear." Or, "Hi, name of hiring manager or recruiter." I come from the tech industry where, Hi, is typically the way people start most emails. How do you know who to address the email to? It's time to use your internet sleuthing powers for good, and check the company website, and do some digging on LinkedIn. It's actually not crucial that you have the exact right name, but you can tell often based on the title and location when you're searching for people on LinkedIn. Another great option is, "Company Name Team". This is customized and not overly formal, just please make sure you double, triple, quadruple check every time you write a cover letter because dang it! I have seen so many cover letters where they write the wrong company name at the top. It happens so so often, so I wanna save you from that, double-check it. Before I dive into what to write in the body of the cover letter, I want to quickly address the heated debate of, does anyone read cover letters anyway? Here's the thing, if you were applying to a large brand name company that gets so many applications, the odds that they read your cover letter are rather low. Everyone wants to work there, and so Google doesn't need to read one more cover letter about how someone's passion for innovation and desire to work at Google is driving them, okay? However, small and medium-sized organizations have a much higher rate of reading cover letters, why? Because for lesser known companies, it's more difficult to find people who are truly passionate about the work of that company. And every person added to those companies makes such a bigger difference because their employee population is much smaller. So, they tend to try to understand more about you before extending an interview. Such as when I worked in the blockchain industry at a mid-sized company, we were more likely to grant an interview to someone with some of the job requirements, but a huge passion and understanding of blockchain technology, than someone with most of the job requirements, but no apparent interest in the technology. They just responded to the job posting because it had their target job title, they know nothing about the company. So, it's a coin toss as to if your cover letter will be red, but if it's a good cover letter, it can make or break the odds that you will land the interview. Do you rarely or often write cover letters? Write Rarely or Often in the comments, I am very interested to see what the typical habits are. What to include in your cover letter? The perfect cover letter has three parts. And when done right, this simple formula should help you craft a cover letter that compliments your resume. You must know that if you have a poor resume, a cover letter ain't gonna save you. So I will link a free resume masterclass on exactly how to elevate your resume so you can get that six-second yes from a recruiter who's reading it, even if you are an unconventional candidate, I'll link that below. Most cover letters make you feel like minions from "Despicable Me" are applying to your job opening. They all sound the same, and the content of the letter could seemingly apply to all of the candidates. Here is an example of what I see day in and day out. "To whom it may concern. Please find my resume for the position of executive assistant. I'm experienced in office administration and have great time management skills. Additionally, I'm highly organized and have been successful working in both individual and group settings. I strongly believe that my educational experience, strong work ethic, customer service experience, communication skills and eagerness to learn will enable me to make a positive contribution to company. Thank you for taking the time to review my application. I look forward to hearing from you soon." Can you tell me one thing that was unique about that person based on this letter? No, probably not. And that means it was a waste of everyone's time. It didn't give us anything about the candidate that wasn't already in their resume. It just self-described, it just gave them adjectives with no examples, and it wouldn't have helped a hiring manager or recruiter one bit. There is one magic ingredient that will ensure you never write a cover letter like that again, why. A good cover letter answers questions like, why are you a great fit for this specific role? Why is this role the logical next step for you? Why are you interested in this company? These are the sorts of answers that tell them who you are and why they should care. I almost passed up on someone because they were going for a project management role, and their experience in the past was in design. But their cover letter perfectly explained, why they're making the career switch? How they built the skills for the switch? And why they were specifically interested in the industry I was hiring in? Their short cover letter made me confident about giving them an interview, and I'm glad I did! That's the special goods burger sauce. And so now, here's the three-part formula to put this into. Part one, who are you? Write one sentence about who you are as a professional. This could sound like, "I'm a social media and content professional with experience in the ad tech industry and a strong focus on data-driven content strategies." Part two, how are you a fit for the role? This is the part where you might be tempted to start saying big things about how your organizational skills or resourcefulness is really going to make you the best person. Resist the urge, reread the job description, and pick up the major themes and biggest problems that will need to be solved. Then, use the section to tell them why you are uniquely fit to solve it. Tell a story or explain why you are a fit despite an unconventional background, do not simply repeat the experience listed on your resume. Here's an example. "My career in content began as a side task when I worked in sales and volunteered to run the company social accounts on top of my existing responsibilities. Within a year, I'd worked to increase their social reach by 120%, and more than doubled their lead generation in website traffic via social media. This led me to transition into a career where I can focus on social strategy and content management full-time." Part three, why this company? Explain why you are interested in this particular company. This could be as short as one sentence. Something like, "I'm especially interested in your company because your current marketing already has such an authentic, relatable voice. And the fact that you're looking for someone to build the social content strategy from the ground up is my favorite work that I've done in the past and it excites me ." All in all, this three-part example cover letter is five sentences long and covers all of your bases, but don't be afraid to shorten it even more. If you can answer all three parts with a single sentence each, there's nothing wrong with a three-sentence cover letter if each sentence is spicy. Here's the Fluff Test to help you get rid of unnecessary fluff. Read every sentence and ask yourself, could this apply to most other candidates? For example, maybe you closed your letter with, "I appreciate your time, and I'm interested in learning more about your company." Okay, this provides no new information about you. It just takes up space, and it takes time out of everyone's lives so cut it. I'll also link a free Tell Me About Yourself Worksheet. Okay, people go bonkers for this worksheet. It has helped thousands of people, both in their job interviews answering that question, and in their cover letters to articulate their value, so I'll link that below. Like this video and subscribe to this channel. You've got this! Wifi high-five.