How to write a cover letter from a job description

Read the posting before you open a template

Paste the job description into a note and mark three requirements you have actually done. Ignore the soft line about passion. The three requirements become the body of the letter, in the ad's order, not in the order of your life story. Each one gets a sentence of proof: where, when, and what changed. If you cannot fill a requirement, do not write a paragraph that pretends. A shorter letter that skips the gap is safer than a fluent lie.

The resume has to be able to support the same three sentences. If the proof is missing there, add it to the resume as text first, then point the letter at it. Generating the letter from a thin resume produces a thin letter. On JobHoot that means filling the experience before you spend the token on the draft. The posting is the other input. One posting, one letter. A second posting is a second draft, because the three requirements moved.

The letter does not repair a broken PDF

A cover letter is read by a person, often after the resume has already been stored as text. If Parse Rate on the resume is poor, the letter will not put the missing column back into the ATS. Fix the resume file first, with the free Resume Score. Then write the letter in the language of the ad.

The letter has one job: show you read this posting, using proof already on the resume. Two short stories beat a page of enthusiasm. Name the requirement, then the place you did the neighboring work, with the same dates the resume uses. If the dates disagree, the reader trusts neither document. Do not add an employer the resume does not contain. JobHoot's generator is held to that. A token, Rp 250, pays for a draft from the resume and the posting. It does not pay for a fictional career. Editing the draft is free. A new account starts with 50 tokens. The smallest purchase is 100 tokens, Rp 25.000.

Skip the letter when the employer said not to send one. Do not send an English template to a Bahasa Indonesia ad, or the reverse, unless the ad itself mixed languages and you are matching that mix for the tool names only.

A letter you can check in five minutes

Print the ad's three requirements in the margin of the draft. Each requirement needs a sentence you can find, almost word for word, in the resume. If the letter says you led a close and the resume says you assisted, fix the letter down to assisted. The reader who opens both will. If a sentence has no partner in the resume, cut it, even if it sounds fluent. Fluency is cheap. A contradiction is what gets remembered.

Keep the letter under a page. Name the role in the first lines. End with a practical line, not a vow. You do not need a token for this shape if the three proofs are already written. Use the generator when the posting is long and you want a first arrangement of material you already have. Then do the margin test anyway. The token did not exempt you from it.

Build the margin test into the draft

Write the three requirements in the margin before you generate anything. After the draft, each requirement needs a sentence you can find on the resume. Led-versus-assisted is the usual lie, and it is the one a reader catches by opening both files. Cut any sentence with no partner on the resume, including fluent ones. Keep the letter under a page. Name the role in the opening lines.

You can do this without a token when the proofs already exist. Use the generator when the posting is long and you want those proofs arranged, then run the margin test anyway. A second posting needs its own letter because the three requirements moved. Do not recycle last week's letter and hope the company name is the only thing that changed. Dates have to match the resume. The language has to match the ad. The free Resume Score still comes first if the PDF you would attach cannot be selected. A letter does not repair Parse Rate.

Three requirements in the margin, each with a resume sentence, is the whole test. A second ad gets a second letter. Last week's company name is not a find-and-replace. If the PDF cannot be selected, fix Parse Rate before you write.

Margin first, draft second, cut third. A letter that cannot point at the resume is not ready to send, and another token will not make the missing proof appear.

Do that margin check on paper if the screen makes you skim. A requirement with no resume sentence is a hole, and holes are cheaper to leave open than to fill with a story you cannot defend.