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Common Cover Letter Mistakes You Should Avoid

A cover letter is a brief introduction to who you are, and it serves to invite the reader to proceed and page through your CV

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A cover letter is a brief introduction to who you are, and it serves to invite the reader to proceed and page through your CV

While job hunting, one of the requirements is a cover letter tagged along with a resume. Most people cringe at the thought of drafting a cover letter, and to farm out a short-cut they end up drafting just one and then editing it whenever it is required elsewhere. And that brings us to the first mistake in this compilation of common cover letter slips-ups.

Failure to replace company name/job title: As a result of having just one cover letter which is edited, forgetting to replace the company information and the job reference is one of the mistakes that could cost you a job. Always ensure you capture this information correctly.

Failure to match skills with job requirement: It becomes a challenge when you have so much experience dredged over time, and you want to forcefully sandwich all the details. A cover letter should be precise. Therefore, you should only select skills that match with the job description and mention them in brief.

Writing a long cover letter: A cover letter is a brief introduction to who you are, and it serves to invite the reader to proceed and page through your CV. A long one will be boring and as researched by Thrive Global published, most recruiters don’t read cover letters and to increase the chances of yours being read, keep it short.

Telling too much: Being extremely open is a mistake that sinks chances of capturing the recruiter’s attention. If you were laid off in your former job, or if the heat got too much and you had to quit and step out, never make the mistake of explaining it in your cover letter. Just tell about who you are and the skills you have. Only talk about other sensitive information if you are directly asked about it in an interview.

Spelling mistakes: Simple grammatical errors lower your credibility. Take time to read through your cover letter and self-edit. In this technology driven age, it’s even easier with spelling tools like Grammarly.  

Which among these mistakes have you made at one point? If you can avoid these simple mistakes the next time you are writing a cover letter, then congratulations, you will have bolstered your chances.

Written by

Kelvin Mokaya


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