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If you send your cover letter to a blind ad, an ad that only lists a PO Box with no company name, you won't know what
company you are applying to. So, be careful, as you could answer an ad
and send a cover letter to the company you are currently
working for.
Before you write your cover letter, learn what company placed the help-wanted
ad. You can do this by calling the post office that handles the zip code listed in the ad's address.
Ask the post office to give you the name of the company that holds the box number listed in the
ad - then you can also do research on the company before you
send your cover letter.
Once you know which company has placed the ad you can decide whether to apply
and send a cover letter.
This can be time consuming and makes many people feel uncomfortable, so very few people call to find out what company placed the
ad before sending a cover letter. Therefore, employers who place blind ads receive very few phone calls from applicants. The fewer the phone calls the less competition you
have. This puts you in a strategic position if you can get enough information to identify an employer and track down a phone number.
Then by calling you can put yourself way ahead of your
competitors and ask questions and learn more about the job
before sending a cover letter.
Several of my clients have gotten interviews by identifying
the company that placed the blind ads before sending their
cover letters. If calling the post office and
asking for the company's name makes you feel uncomfortable then ask yourself how uncomfortable you're going to feel if you don't get an
interview and send your cover letter and get no response.
This may help you to motivate yourself and to overcome your fear - and looking
for a job can bring up many fears about loss of income,
we're not good enough, and just feeling frazzled by it all. Remember, by taking action and
calling ahead of sending your cover letter you gain more control of the interview process which is much better than passively waiting for a phone
call after sending out dozens of cover letters. Taking action like this is a trade off between how much you want a particular job and how much you are willing to face your fears.
Apply for each position, and send your cover letter, as soon as possible. If you find an ad in a Sunday paper, answer it
and send your cover letter that night or the next day. If you wait too long you may lose
out because so many cover letters and resumes have been
received. Some small to mid-size companies receive so many resumes and cover letters that they may not even open them all. Several office managers have confirmed, during my workshops, that their companies don't always open or keep every
cover letter or resume that's submitted to them.
This was routine in one office where I worked. Generally, we'd receive from 80 to 300
cover letters and resumes for any position we advertised in the Sunday paper. By Tuesday we had usually received over 100
cover letters and resumes, then would receive another 100
cover letters by the end of the week, and the rest would come in for another week or so.
If we were in a rush to hire, on Tuesday we'd sort the cover letters and resumes. If we found enough qualified applicants we would set up
interviews based on the pool of cover letters already
received. Then if we hired someone from those interviews, the rest of the resumes and cover letters wouldn't even be opened but would be filed. It was just too time consuming.
This happens all the time and is a contributing factor to the problems many job seekers
experience when sending out cover letters. While
hiring rules require city departments or large organizations to keep and document all
cover letters, resumes and applications, many small to mid-size companies may not follow such procedures.
To increase your cover letter response rate, email or mail (if required) your cover letters and resumes within one day, or two days at the latest to advertised positions. This will help to ensure that your
cover letter and resume is reviewed. Clients are often surprised at the quick response they get when they mail a cover letter and resume on a Sunday night for a weekend advertisement. Many clients have called me on a Thursday or Friday to say they've just scheduled interviews for positions they
had sent cover letters to over the previous weekend.
Below
are more cover letter snippets, cover letter tips and cover
letter samples from my book Proven Resumes Strategies
That Have Increased Salaries $9.95 instant access
which provides more
detailed information on cover letters. It is filled
with success stories of job seekers who thought they were
not qualified for the jobs they wanted - but wrote their
cover letters anyway - and landed good jobs.
The cover letter strategies in my book have been responsible
for helping clients raise their pay $2,000 to $80,000 more
per year.
If you're having difficulty creating a resume and
cover letter - you
might consider hiring me to write your resume.
The fee is $150 or $250.
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Order Master Resume
and Cover Letter Service
by Regina Pontow
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Contents, Regina Pontow, 1997-2013
