Power of Cover Letters Often Underestimated

Indianapolis, IN (PRWEB) June 18, 2007 -- Too often, job seekers focus all their time and energy developing their resume and hastily write a cover letter to accompany it. Savvy job seekers, however, know that a resume is only as good as its cover letter. In fact, a nationwide survey by Accountemps found that 60 percent of executives believe a cover letter is either as important as or more critical than a resume.

To land a job in today's competitive job market, job seekers must know how to write an eye-catching cover letter. They must also know how to use a resume and cover letter together to sell themselves to employers and recruiters.    

Yet, learning how to perfect these steps can be problematic. Although book stores and libraries are packed with hundreds of books that tell job seekers how to write an outstanding resume and cover letter, few books actually tell people how to develop these job search tools so that they complement and support each other.

The new book, Gallery of Best Cover Letters, Third Edition, is one of the few career resources that that gives job seekers the secrets for success throughout their writing process and debunks the myth that resumes and cover letters are two separate documents that have little to do with each other.

"Your resume and cover letter should work together in presenting you effectively to a prospective employer. The cover letter should draw attention to the most important information in the resume, the information you want the reader to be certain to see," says David Noble, Ph.D., author of Gallery of Best Cover Letters.

In his book, Noble offers the following five tips for connecting a cover letter to a resume:

• If the intended reader of a resume suggested that the job seeker send it, or if the job seeker has recently spoken with the person, he should say this in the first sentence of the cover letter.
• If a third party has suggested the job seeker submit their resume to the reader, mention that at or near the beginning of the cover letter.
• Include important information in a cover letter for which there is no room in the resume.
• Think of the cover letter as a hook for the resume. For example, the letter might refer specifically to the most important part of the resume.
• Create a .text or .pdf version of a cover letter and resume so that they can be customized as needed. Also, e-mail them in response to online ads or post them to online job databases.

Gallery of Best Cover Letters, Third Edition, is available at all major bookstores and from the publisher (www.jist.com or 1.800.648.JIST). To speak with the author, contact Natalie Ostrom.

JIST, America's Career Publisher, is a division of EMC/Paradigm Publishing and is the leading publisher of job search, career, occupational information, life skills and character education books, workbooks, assessments, videos and software.

###