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Take a moment and read Fran's cover letter below, keeping in
mind that she wants a $33,000 Corporate Customer Service
position. This cover letter story is from a real
client in one of the employment security workshops I taught
sometime after 1992--so we in reality we could easily bump
up the salary she wanted to $43,000 for today's job market -
so this substantially elevates the job her cover letter
needs to do.
With $43,000 in mind and the title of Corporate Customer
Service, what happens when you read each of her cover letter
paragraphs in the before cover letter? Does her image
go up, down or match the $43,000 salary and job title as you
read the cover letter?
| COVER LETTER IS
$9,000 BELOW GOAL |
Most people graphing the titles and statements in Fran's
before cover letter say they present a weak image of her skills and don't market her strongly enough for a $33,000
Corporate Customer Service position let alone one for a
$43,000 position.
Since we know Fran's cover letter was generating only a few interviews for positions in the
$24,000 range - $9,000 below her goal of $33,000 at the time
- we can assume that employers were also reacting this way.
Now let's look at why we have a weak image of Fran's skills. Most people say they just don't see Directory Operators providing extensive customer service (although they do). As a result, they feel this title weakens Fran's image and graph it below her goal of a $33,000 position.
Next, people tend to react negatively to the title of Telemarketer and feel it weakens Fran's image even more and graph it much lower than Directory Operator. While they like the title of Small Business Owner and graph it higher than Telemarketer, they don't graph it even to Fran's goal because they don't know how being a Small Business Owner relates to customer service.
Then they read the statement, "Assisting customers to locate phone numbers," which they feel portrays Fran as not having in-depth customer service experience or problem solving skills. This causes her image to drop again and is graphed accordingly.
The next statement, "Market the Christmas Tree farm" creates an image of someone selling trees out in a lot -which doesn't match our image of a customer service representative in a corporate office. This also causes Fran's image to drop.
Then we read, "Provide telephone support using Centrex system," which sounds more like a receptionist making $18,000 than a Customer Service Representative making $33,000. This results in Fran's image dropping to the lowest point because she seems to be about $15,000 below her salary goal.
Last we read, "Computer skills include
word-processing and spreadsheets." Since these are needed but sound like clerical skills this statement causes Fran's image to come up but not significantly. Overall, the graph makes it easy to understand why Fran didn't generate enough interviews, and why those interviews were for jobs significantly beneath her salary
goal.
Now read Fran's after cover letter - how would you graph
it? Does her image end up matching the image of a
Corporate Customer Service Representative at $33,000 - and
even at $43,000 in today's job market?
| FRAN'S AFTER COVER
LETTER IS $9,000 BELOW GOAL |
FRAN'S AFTER COVER
LETTER
MATCHES $33,000 - EVEN $43,000 TODAY |
If
you are like most people you graphed the after cover letter
more like this:
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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Contents, Regina Pontow, 1997-2013
