How to make a cover letter for a technical resume?

Sometimes it is quite hard to find the proper words for a cover letter. This problem is especially relevant for technical field professionals. Regardless of the fact are you a software developer or a mechanical engineer, you probably hate writing cover letters because it is not enough just to highlight your skills and experience in them. If you want to learn how to write persuasive and effective technical cover letters, this article is for you.

Make your cover letter targeted

The first thing you should remember about cover letters is that they should not be generic. You should not make one cover letter suitable for a wide range of vacancies. Your cover letter has to express your passion for a particular job in a particular company. Recruiters appreciate that. They usually define candidates who send similar letters to many employers during the first stage of selection and filter their applications.

From a recruiter’s perspective, sending a generic cover letter to multiple employers’ means that the applicant lacks passion to certain work and can leave it in a few months. Hiring managers are responsible not only for staffing but also for employee retention rates. That is why they prefer to hire only people who exactly know what they want.

To make your cover letter targeted, you should include skills and qualifications from a certain job posting in it. Try to highlight these competences omitting the ones that are not mentioned in the description of the position advertised. It does not mean that you should overload the document with relevant skills. Mention only the most important of them and never cheat trying to say that you possess the expertise you don’t have in reality.

Consider asking for professional cover letter writing services from someone you trust.

Use professional jargon and keywords

Professional jargon is a common term explaining a range of notions that are typical for a certain professional field. If you are a technical expert, this aspect is extremely important to create a successful cover letter for you. Professional terms in your career document will signalize the recruiter that you are well versed in your field of activity.

Additionally, filling your cover letter with professional lexis can help it pass the ATS control. ATS’s are applicant tracking systems. This type of software was designed to help recruiters scan the resumes of candidates. All ATS’s work according to the same principle: they scan the resumes and cover letters of jobseekers to find keywords inputted by hiring managers. If the document does not contain enough keywords, it is omitted and the hiring manager does not see it. Professional jargon is one of the most popular types of keywords used on resumes and cover letters of technical experts. Hence, it is a good idea to include it in your documents. However, you always should decrypt abbreviations and acronyms you use in your cover letter since recruiters not always have technical competences necessary to understand them.

Tips on cover letter structure

Some people think that there is no established structure of cover letters and the way they describe their career depends individually on them. This opinion is wrong. The world of staff hiring is quite formalized. It has formal procedures and templates almost for any action or document. Cover letters are no exception. Below we will describe the structure of a typical cover letter appreciated by hiring managers.

• First paragraph: show your motivation. Tell where did you find the job posting and why do you want to work in the company advertised. Mentioning one or two defining skills in this paragraph is also a good idea. For example, if you are familiar with bitcoin or machine learning, or data science.
• Second paragraph: describe your duties in your last work. Mention only the most important responsibilities.
• Third paragraph: repeat the above-mentioned procedure for previous jobs. Describe only the most important jobs relevant to the intended position.
• Fourth paragraph: wish good luck and express your interest one more time. This paragraph is a perfect place for a phrase like: “Look forward to hearing from you”.