>> Dispatch your skills with a cover letter - Part 2

Ideal length: 2 - 3 Lines

End the letter with Yours Sincerely Yours truly or Yours Cordially.

Avoid Overusing The Personal Pronoun I: Since a cover letter is a personal response, it is inevitable that the letter will recur many times. This lends the letter a certain monotony. Although not entirely avoidable you could cut on its usage. For instance, instead of stating, "My responsibilities as a programmer involved, you could say, "The responsibilities the job entailed were ....

Tone: The tone of the cover letter should reflect your professionalism. Remember you are about to forge a business relationship with the prospective recruiter and are not addressing a friend or family member. Hence, an over-familiar or jocular tone will not impress your prospective recruiter. Many candidates err on the right side by assuming a pompous tone. Keep the letter simple and avoid jargon and sentences which sound off-landish such as: "My candidature would make essential value additions to the company's bottomline. This sounds pretentious, whereas "I am certain I will be able to use my skills to improve productivity, does not."

The Cover Letter: Do not forget to use the command Alt TS, after you frame the cover letter. Spellers not only deflect attention from the content of the letter, but also reveal a lack of eye for detail and have a negative impact on your candidature. Remember, the MS word spell check will not record every spelling error. Therefore, considering the amount of time you have spent framing the letter, do ensure that the name of the company, the name of the post is correctly spelt. Ask a friend or family members to weed out the grammatical errors to which you have become immune.

Having paid adequate attention to the content, concentrate on the appearance of the cover letter. The cover letter must be written clearly on a piece of white paper. Use the same font as you have used to type your resume and avoid sending copies of letters where words are smudged or the paper on which it is written is frayed or yellow.