How to Write a Cover Letter
Learn how to write a cover letter that gets read. Covers the opening, how to connect your experience to the role, and what to skip entirely.
Knowing what to say is not the hardest part of writing a cover letter. The hardest part is that most advice tells you to be "passionate" and "enthusiastic" without explaining what that actually looks like on paper.
So you end up writing something that sounds like every other applicant. "I am writing to express my interest in the position of..." That sentence spends your opening line on information the application form already carried.
A good cover letter does three things. It shows you understand what the company needs. It connects your specific experience to that need. And it sounds like a real person wrote it, not a template generator.
This guide walks you through each paragraph with concrete examples and explains what to avoid. Aim to fill one page and stop there. That is the limit Penn's career services publishes, and it is a better target than any word count.
Research the company before you write anything
Spend ten minutes on the company's website, their about page, and recent news. Look for what they are working on, what they value, and any challenges or goals they have mentioned publicly. Check their LinkedIn page for recent posts from leadership. Look at the company's press page, blog, or social media for recent announcements. A product launch, a new office, a funding round, or a leadership change are all things you can mention naturally in your opening paragraph. If they recently published a case study or won an industry award, referencing it shows genuine interest and attention to detail. Read the job posting three times and highlight the top three requirements they emphasize. This research gives you the specific details that separate a tailored letter from a generic one. You do not need to become an expert on the company. You just need to show you did more than read the job title.
Write an opening that earns the second paragraph
Skip "I am writing to apply for..." and "I was excited to see your posting for..." Both openings waste your first line on something the reader already knows. Instead, open with something specific. Name the role, then immediately connect it to something relevant about you or the company. For example: "Your data engineering team just open-sourced a streaming pipeline framework. I have spent the last three years building similar tools at Acme Corp, and I would love to bring that experience to your team." Or for a less technical role: "I noticed your marketing team is expanding into video content. I have produced over 200 short-form videos for B2B brands in the past two years and understand the specific challenges of making technical products engaging on screen." The goal is to show relevance in the first two sentences. Give the reader a reason to keep going. Keep the opening paragraph to three or four sentences. Longer than that and you lose momentum. The opening is not where you make your case. It is where you earn the right to make your case in the next paragraph.
Good to know: If you cannot find anything specific to say about the company, that is a sign you need to do more research, or that this might not be the right job to spend time applying to.
Connect your experience to their specific needs
This is the core of your cover letter. Pick two or three requirements from the job posting and show how your experience addresses each one. Do not just say you have the skill. Show a result. If they want someone who can manage cross-functional projects, write about a specific project you managed, who was involved, and what the outcome was. If they need someone who can improve processes, describe a process you improved and quantify the result. Use the same language the job posting uses. If they say "stakeholder communication," use that phrase, not "talking to important people." Each example should be one to two sentences. You are not retelling your whole career. You are connecting the dots between what they need and what you have already done. Structure each example as a mini-story: situation, what you did, and the result. This pattern is concrete and easy to follow. A specific outcome gives the reader something to check and something to ask you about in an interview. An adjective like self-starter does neither, because nothing on the page stands behind it.
Explain why this role specifically interests you
A letter that could go to any company in the industry reads that way. This paragraph is where you answer why this job at this company. Maybe the role combines two areas of your expertise in a way your current role does not. Maybe the company is doing work that aligns with a specific professional interest. Maybe you have used their product and have ideas about it. Whatever your reason is, make it genuine and specific. Avoid flattery that could apply to any company like "I admire your commitment to innovation." Instead, point to something concrete, like a product decision they made, a company initiative you read about, or a direction their team is heading that excites you. If you are changing industries or roles, this paragraph is where you address it directly. Explain what draws you from your current field to this one and why the transition makes sense. A data analyst moving into product management might write: "After three years of building dashboards that shaped product decisions, I want to be on the side of the table making those decisions. Your team's approach to data-driven product development is exactly the environment where my analytical background would translate into better outcomes." Do not apologize for the change. Frame it as a deliberate step forward.
Close with a clear, confident ask
Your closing paragraph should be two to three sentences. State that you would like to discuss how your experience fits the role. Mention that you are available for a conversation at their convenience. Thank them for their time. That is it. Do not beg, do not oversell, and do not include a line about how you are "the perfect candidate." Let your examples speak for you. End with "Sincerely" or "Best regards" followed by your name. Do not use "Warmly," "Cheers," or "Thanks!" unless the company culture is extremely casual and you are sure of the tone. If the posting mentions a specific timeline ("applications reviewed on a rolling basis" or "position starts in September"), you can reference it briefly to show you are paying attention. Avoid mentioning salary, benefits, or negotiation in the cover letter. Those conversations happen after you get the interview, not before.
Format it cleanly and proofread twice
Use the same font as your resume for a consistent look. Standard business letter format works: your contact info at the top, the date, the company name and hiring manager (if you have a name), then the body. Keep it to one page. Penn State's engineering career office describes the shape as an introduction, one to three short body paragraphs, and a conclusion, all of it one page or less. Read it out loud before sending. If any sentence sounds stiff or overly formal, rewrite it the way you would actually say it to a colleague. Then proofread for typos and grammatical errors. The letter is the part of your application that exists to show how you write, so a typo in it costs you more than one buried in a list of dates and job titles. On file format, follow the posting. If it names a format, use that one. If it says nothing, a PDF is the safer default because it holds your layout across devices. The same Penn State page accepts .doc, .docx, or PDF, so a Word file is not a mistake either. Name the file with your name and the word cover letter: Jane-Smith-Cover-Letter.pdf. Avoid generic names like CoverLetter_Final_v2.docx. Before submitting, open the file on a different device or email it to yourself to confirm the formatting looks correct. Font rendering, margin spacing, and line breaks can shift between programs. A two-minute check catches problems that would make your letter look sloppy on the hiring manager's screen.
A cover letter is not a formality. It is your chance to say something your resume cannot. Your resume shows what you did. Your cover letter explains why it matters and why this particular job interests you. Do not treat it as a summary of your resume. If you are restating bullet points, delete those sentences and replace them with context your resume does not provide. Keep your best letters in a folder labeled by industry or role type, and start a new one from the closest match. The structure carries over and so does the tone. What cannot carry over is the part that made the letter work, because that was the paragraph naming one company and one job. A generic letter is the kind that can hurt you, so reusing the specifics is the shortcut that costs more than it saves.
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
The evidence says yes, and it comes with a caveat worth stating up front. ResumeGo ran a field experiment between July 2019 and January 2020, sending 7,287 fictitious applications to real job postings, and found that applications carrying a cover letter tailored to the job had a 53% higher callback rate than applications sent with no cover letter at all. Its companion survey of 236 hiring professionals found 87% of them read cover letters. The caveat is that ResumeGo sells resume and cover letter writing, so the study measures the value of its own product. We went looking for an equivalent experiment from a university or a professional association and did not find one, so treat the figures as directional rather than settled. Some hiring managers skip them entirely. Others use them as a deciding factor between similar candidates. You cannot know in advance which type you are dealing with, so write a good one. A weak or generic cover letter can hurt you, but a strong one can be the difference between a callback and silence. Even if a job posting says a cover letter is optional, a strong one still gives the reader something your resume cannot. Optional does not mean unread.
One page, and that is the figure worth aiming at rather than a word count. Penn's career services says the letter should fit onto one page, with consistent margins and a readable font between 10 and 12 points. Penn State's engineering career office says the same, one page or less. In practice that is three to five short paragraphs, meaning an introduction, one to three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. If you are running past it, you are usually carrying information that belongs on your resume instead. Cut any sentence that restates a resume bullet point without adding new context.
No. If your cover letter is a paragraph version of your resume bullet points, it adds nothing to your application. Your cover letter should provide context, motivation, and connections that your resume cannot. Why did you make certain career moves? What draws you to this specific role? How do your experiences connect to their specific challenges? The cover letter is your chance to tell a brief story that your resume's format does not allow. Here is a simple test. If you could delete your cover letter and the hiring manager would learn nothing new about you, the letter is not doing its job.
Use "Dear Hiring Manager" or "Dear [Department] Team." Do not use "To Whom It May Concern" because it sounds impersonal and outdated. Look up the hiring manager's name on LinkedIn by searching the company name and the department mentioned in the job posting. If you find it, use it. If not, "Dear Hiring Manager" is standard, and the Penn State career page linked in step 6 recommends it for exactly this case.
Focus on transferable skills rather than job titles. Identify what your previous experience taught you that applies to the new field. A teacher applying to corporate training has classroom management, curriculum design, and presentation skills. A bartender moving into sales has customer relationship building, objection handling, and working under pressure. Name the specific skills that overlap, give examples from your previous role, and explain why you are making the change. Do not apologize for your background or call yourself a non-traditional candidate. Frame the career change as a deliberate choice driven by genuine interest, not as something you need permission for. If you have taken courses, earned certifications, or done volunteer work in the new field, mention those as evidence that your interest is serious and that you have already started building relevant knowledge.
Professional Writing Toolkit
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How to Write a Resume
How to Write a Cover Letter
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