Cover letter advice, please

[Dan Mages]

I have a bit of a problem and can use some advice. I am completely fed up of my current job and will be looking for a new one in Milwaukee ASAP. My resume is nice and all, but I cannot come up with anything to say in my cover letter.

The big problem is that my current role can be described as running a performance management tool that my boss and her boss have no desire to expand upon my current setup nor do they have any intent to deploy it beyond the immediate team. The rest of the time I am either twiddling my thumbs sitting idle or doing busy work that is well below my skill level, mainly data entry and collection.

So the big issue is, how do I describe my abilities and current responsibilities when my abilities have gone to waste and i have accomplished nothing?

Thanks,

Dan

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Dan....I would make the theme of the cover letter pertain to wanting more professional challenges with the opportunity to expand and utilize more of your professional education and skills.

[Joe Mioux]

First you need to do an assessment of your skills.

Leadership, planning, organizational etc skills. It has been a long time since I wrote on of these things.

Discuss, why you want a new job, what you like about your current job, the challenges you face.

Then discuss what you want out of a new job.

Past projects that you enjoyed working on.

Keep everything positive.

[Steve Dewey]

Ken has given some good advice.

I'd like to add - your best bet to land a new job is thru networking. Blindly sending your cover letter & resume has a pretty low sucess rate (even when replying to job openings). Think about what you want to do, talk to your friends & family, see if they can introduce you to someone in your target area. You may find your dream job at a company you didn't even know existed. The holy grail of networking is for them to create a position just for you because they must have your experience/skills/personality etc. working for them.

A good book is "What color is your parachute".

Good luck.

[Dan Mages]

I should clarify that I am changing jobs and moving to Milwaukee since I am getting married and moving up there this summer.

[Joe Pelonio]

My daughter was a recruiter for a large bank, and told us that the biggest mistake people make is writing one cover letter and sending it to multiple employers, with just the adressee changed. She says it's very important for you to show in the cover letter that you have done some research and show you are at least somewhat familiar with what they do.

[Art Mulder]

So the big issue is, how do I describe my abilities and current responsibilities when my abilities have gone to waste and i have accomplished nothing?


Similar struggles here, Dan.

One bit of advice I can pass on... use the cover letter to describe what you can do for this new company, not what you are doing. And yes, you should personalize each cover letter as much as possible. Make it specific to the position/company you are applying for.

And agree with the quote about networking. I hate it myself, but you've got to do it.

Don't burn any bridges.

[Steven Wilson]

What you describe needs to be covered in your resume. You may want to produce a functional resume that way you can highlight past projects/responsibilities instead of a chronological resume which would tend to highlight recent "thumb twiddling". Your cover letter is a different animal althogether and needs to be tailored to the client you're submitting your resume to. I keep a rather massive Word document that has a bunch of good phrases, paragraphs, etc. that I can pull from in building a cover letter. To me the cover letter acts to summarize how your resume fits in to the company and position which you are applying for.

[john dennis]

Focus on your successes. For instance: I helped develop a system to eliminate waste/time/whatever. But don't stop there! Six months after we initiated the system we realized a twenty percent reduction in waste/time/whatever.

I've read many, many coverletters and resumes. I really didn't care much want someone wanted to do for me, I wanted to know what "teams" they've been on, what their specific role was and most importantly what was the outcome. Even if the outcome wasn't so great, the positive "spin" is "we determined the problem wasn't in that location and another team was being formed in the areas we reccommended."

Since you're moving to another state networking is difficult, unless you belong to a professional organization. In that case, start there. Otherwise, use headhunters, employment agencies, and most importantly, subscribe to the online version of the largest newspaper in that area. Don't use the free version of the newspapers since they do NOT publish all jobs, ads, etc.
Good luck to you!

[Peter Lyon]

I'd like to echo Joe's comments. In my position, I do fair amount of hiring and one of the biggest mistakes I see are people sending out boiler plate cover letters/resumes.

I would argue that it's going to be pretty difficult to write an effective cover letter (or even a resume for that matter) before knowing what job it is that you're applying for. I look for prospective employees to show a real passion about the subject matter. You can find a wealth of information about my company on the internet. I expect applicants to take advantage of this fact and do some research. Examples include either mentioning a current featured project, echoing the company mission statement or incorporating at least a bit of our jargon in the text.

I recognize this takes more effort but my gut feeling is that if a candidate is not willing to put in the effort before they get the job, just imagine what will happen afterwards.