How to write a cover letter for a specific job

Your resume lists what you have done. A cover letter picks two or three of those things and says why they matter for this job. It is the one place in an application where you can draw the line between a requirement in the posting and a piece of your work, in full sentences, before anyone has to work it out for themselves.

Not every reader opens it, and many forms make it optional. It still earns its place when the form has a box for one, when you are changing fields and the resume alone does not make the connection, and when the role sits close to the edge of what you have done. A generic letter adds nothing in any of those cases. A letter written for one posting can.

Three or four short paragraphs are enough. Each has one job.

1. The opening. One or two sentences on a real thing about the employer or the role: what the team is building, a product you know, a problem the posting describes. Then say which role you are applying for. Skip the line about being excited to apply; every letter has it.
2. First proof. Take the requirement the posting puts first and show it through one piece of your work: what you did, with what, and what changed because of it.
3. Second proof. Another requirement, shown through a different piece of work, so the two paragraphs together cover more than one side of the job.
4. The close. One or two sentences: what you would bring to the role, and that you would be glad to talk. No list of adjectives about yourself.

Address it to the hiring manager by name if the posting gives one. If it does not, “Dear Hiring Team,” is fine and better than a guessed name or “To whom it may concern”.

1. Read the requirements and pick two. The ones near the top of the list, or the ones the posting repeats, are the ones the team cares about most.
2. Find your proof for each. Look through your resume for the line where you did that work. If you cannot find one, pick a different requirement. A letter that argues for a skill your resume never shows invites the obvious question.
3. Add what the resume line leaves out. The letter is where a line like “Rebuilt the onboarding flow” becomes a short story: why it needed rebuilding, what you changed, what happened after. Keep to what you can talk about in an interview.
4. Write the opening last. Once the proof is down, the opening is easier: it points at the part of the employer's work that your proof speaks to.
5. Cut. Read it once more and take out every sentence that would fit any job. What is left is the letter.
6. Match the posting's language. A posting written in German gets a letter in German, unless it asks for something else.

Here is a made-up letter for a made-up posting: a product designer role at a company building scheduling software for clinics, asking for end-to-end product design and experience running user research.

Dear Hiring Team,

Booking a clinic appointment is still a phone call for most patients, and your scheduling tool is one of the few I have seen that makes the clinic's side as simple as the patient's. I'm applying for the Product Designer role.

At my current company I designed our appointment reminders from the first sketch to release. I mapped where patients dropped out, tested three versions of the reminder with the support team, and shipped the one that let a patient move a booking without calling. Missed appointments fell in the months after, and the support team stopped answering the same question every morning.

I also run our research sessions. Every two weeks I sit with front-desk staff at two partner clinics and watch how they use the calendar, and those sessions shaped the redesign of our week view last spring.

I would like to bring the same habits to your clinic tools, and I'd be glad to walk you through either project.

Best regards,

It has an opening about the employer's product, two proof paragraphs covering the posting's two requirements with two different pieces of work, and a one-line close. It claims nothing a resume with those two lines would not support.

• Your resume again, in sentences. The reader has the resume. The letter picks and explains.
• The posting read back to them. “You are looking for a self-starter with strong communication skills” tells them what they wrote. Show the trait through the work instead.
• Claims your resume does not support. If the letter says you led a team and the resume shows no team, the reader trusts both less.
• Apologies. No need to explain what you lack. Write about what you have.
• Length. A page is the ceiling. Most good letters are well under it.

Application forms take a cover letter in one of two ways, and some take both.

A text box

Paste the letter as plain text. Many boxes have a character limit, and some cut the text silently when you go past it, so check the limit before you paste and write within it. A letter that only fits by losing its close is the wrong length for that box.

A file field

Upload a PDF. Name it plainly, such as Cover Letter.pdf, and print it on the same page size as your resume: US Letter for jobs in the US and Canada, A4 elsewhere. If the form has both a box and a file field, fill both with the same letter.

When the form has no place for a letter at all, do not force one in through another field. Put the effort into the resume instead: our guide to tailoring a resume to a job description covers that.

Jobapplier writes each letter for one posting, from the resume made for that posting (or your master resume when there is none) and your Profile. What the posting asks for reaches the writer marked as the employer's wishes, never as your facts, and the company details already on file give the opening something real to say. Nothing is fetched from the web for a letter.

The letter follows the shape above: it opens “Dear Hiring Team,”, runs about 250 to 350 words in three or four paragraphs, gives two proof paragraphs on two different requirements with two different pieces of work, and is written in the posting's language.

Then every sentence is checked by a second AI call against your resume and Profile. A sentence that claims more than they show is rewritten to what they do show, and a sentence with nothing true left in it is cut. If your resume shows nothing the posting asks for, there is no letter, and you are told why.

• In your browser, the extension writes the letter when you press Autofill or “Apply with tailored resume”, and puts it into an empty letter box, within its length limit, or into a file field as Cover Letter.pdf. You read it, edit it or delete it before you press Submit yourself.
• The Agent sends a letter wherever the form has a place for one, as text or as a PDF.
• Every application keeps the letter that went with it, and Review shows it.

Cover letters are part of the paid plans; see pricing, or the cover letter feature for more.