Wrapping up our series on a survey on cover letters conducted by Robin Ryan, author of Winning Cover Letters. Ryan quotes Human Resource Manager Barbara Baker, who concisely summarizes the best cover-letter strategy to follow: “I’ve hired over 1,200 people. I’ve seen so many mistakes — too long, too short, general, non-specific content, some even state the reasons they were fired. A great cover letter boils down to this — a simple direct letter that mentions how their skills relate to performing the position applied for.”
“Many people write such a terrible cover letter they never get an interview, let alone land the job,” Ryan notes.” That’s one mistake you should never make.” The entire list of survey results and all 23 mistakes plus sample cover letters are published in the book Winning Cover Letters 2nd Edition by Robin Ryan.
