Not all companies demand cover letters from their applicants. However, it is always a big plus if you attach a cover letter to your job application. If you want to make everything possible to land an interview, you must be ready to prepare more documents than the one resume. And it would be best if you were willing to deal with unexpected situations.
Sometimes, you come across a job opening and understand that you should apply at once. But, it can be an issue if you haven’t completed a resume and a cover letter yet. If you spend the whole day on the creation of these documents, you will lose your chances of getting noticed by recruiters. So, you should be able to create an excellent resume and a cover letter the fastest way possible. The following are five tips for writing an effective resume and cover letter in an hour.
1. A cover letter should be a supplement to your resume
One of the most common mistakes new job seekers make is putting the same info in a resume and cover letters. The resume gives a summary of your whole work experience and educational journey. The cover letter is the extended version of your “objective’ section.
In the cover letter, you should dwell on 1-2 significant events of your life that make you a worthy candidate for the position. It’s like writing a persuasive essay, where you put your work accomplishments as the key arguments. Talent acquisition specialists won’t arrange a job interview with candidates who provide identical information in the CV and cover letter for an interview.
2. Control the word count
Job application documents are not your college paper; you need to reach a certain word count. A resume must consist of not longer than 1-2 pages. 1-page size is the best option, but a rare person can reach it. We suggest taking a 1-page limit as an example because a person can quickly fill it within half an hour in the best-case scenario.
While the size of your resume can be up to two pages, cover letters should be no longer than a half-page. Your cover letter should never exceed one page in length. Otherwise, recruiters won’t read it. Employers value their time, so they screen out candidates whose job application doesn’t meet even the tiniest requirement. You can use this rule as an opportunity to save time on cover letter writing. Complying a cover letter within an hour or 30 minutes is possible if you don’t exceed a half-page limit.
Divide your cover letter into small paragraphs. It will help your employer to look through it quickly. Put one significant point in one section. For example, the first paragraph should contain a greeting and introductory information. The second one must show your advantages as a candidate. In the last paragraph, the candidate should thank the hiring manager for reading the letter.
3. Delegate the work to career experts
Applying for a job can be tedious, especially if you need to apply to several different companies. You can send the same resume to each of them, but it is more complicated with letters of interest because you should adjust to the organization you’re applying to. In this case, there is no way possible to finish your application within an hour. There’s only one way to save your precious time: cover letter writing services.
Career help services have been helping job seekers create a bot-beating resume and an effective cover letter for their job application for almost ten years. To create a cover letter with the assistance of a professional writer, you need to choose a top cover letter service and make an order. All services such as skillhub.com have an option of urgent orders with a tight deadline, but you must be ready to pay extra cost for it.
4. Use cover letter samples as a reference
Writing a large amount of text from scratch is very challenging. It’s hard to produce 250 words and turn them into coherent text when you have never done it before. A job applicant must follow specific rules while writing a cover letter. They must get familiar with the guidelines of cover letter writing and get some samples as an example. Some rules and guidelines may look vague the first time. It also takes much time to look through all of the instructions for cover letter writing and figure out the sequence of actions. A cover letter sample, on the contrary, gives you a whole impression of what your final result should be. You see the structure, formatting, and useful phrases for the cover letter.
5. Brainstorm main points
There are several reasons why people spend more time on writing than they expect. One of the most significant reasons is a writing block. Various techniques help people fight it, and brainstorming is one of them. To generate information for your cover letter, look at the job description, do company research and ask yourself the following questions:
- What do you find most exciting about the position?
- What relevant experience do you have?
- What value could you bring to the project?
It would also be helpful to have your resume and the job description open or printed next to you. That way, you can look over it and make sure you’re highlighting the right points.
To Sum Up
Creating an effective resume and cover letter in an hour is more than possible. You can delegate it to qualified cover letter writers or do it yourself using time-saving life hacks. Just keep to the word count limit, brainstorm key points and look through several writing samples to make this process less time-consuming.
