Cover letters get a bad rap. Writing them is time-consuming and nerve-wracking. It can feel like one more (not very fun!) hoop to jump through in the job application process.
But done right, cover letters are a powerful tool where you can go a step beyond your resume to show recruiters and hiring managers who you are. Especially where soft skills—or as we like to call them, human skills—are concerned. Think emotional intelligence, adaptability, and creativity—the skills that are harder to quantify, but are definitely in-demand in the tech industry.
We previously wrote about the top skills tech employers look for beyond coding and how to demonstrate them during your interview. Now, we’ll dive into how to do the same, but in your cover letter.
With these tips, you’ll be able to draft a cover letter that showcases your skills in an authentic way. And lands you the interview that gets your foot in the door!
Tip 1: Highlight Results
Great cover letters tell a story about who you are and what you’re capable of. For a story to be effective, it needs to demonstrate change. In fact, change is the most important part of a story. It’s what makes it compelling and memorable.
This means that any anecdote or example you include in your cover letter should make clear how your human skills got results—that is, how they led to a positive change. The “formula” looks a little like this:
Problem → Putting Human Skill to Use → Solution and Results
Can’t think of work-related examples to draw from? No worries. While it’s great to use examples from previous employment when you can, these stories can also come from internships, volunteer work, or even from more personal experiences.
The more specific you can make these examples, the better. So anytime you can, point to numbers or other tangible results.
To see this in action, here are a few examples.
Demonstrating Creativity: Summer Job Example
During my summer job as a concessions cashier, I noticed that my teammates had trouble remembering their schedules, leading to gaps in shift coverage. I discussed the issue with the team, then came up with and implemented a creative idea to integrate our master calendar with staff members’ personal calendars, leading to 50% fewer missed shifts.
Demonstrating Adaptability: Volunteer Example
For the past few years, I’ve used my Spanish skills as a volunteer translator at a community health clinic. When the clinic needed to make a last-minute move to a new location, I stayed adaptable, shifting gears quickly to help organize this effort. This included recruiting two dozen community members to help and applying my language skills to the moving coordination. This resulted in getting the clinic up and running again a day earlier than expected.
Demonstrating Resilience: Personal Example
While I was getting my associate’s degree, I needed to move home to care for one of my parents, who was recovering from an accident. I balanced my studies, my caretaking duties, and a part-time job by switching to night classes and taking some of my credits online. While this was challenging, I was able to stay resilient and graduate on time, while also helping my parent, who has made a full recovery.
Tip 2: Play the Keywords Game
Ask any recruiter or hiring manager, and they’ll tell you they get hundreds of applications for every open position. To deal with this volume of applicants, human resources departments will often use software called an application tracking system (ATS for short) to complete the first round of screening.
For the most part, ATS is more likely to be screening your resume than your cover letter. However, it’s possible your cover letter will also be scanned. So it’s a good idea to make sure your cover letter includes keywords from the job description.
Looking at the examples from Tip 1, notice that we made sure to actually include the words “creative,” “adaptable,” and “resilient” in their respective examples. This ensures the software will flag this as a relevant and qualified application.
Take another look at the job description for the role you’re interested in. Scan for any human skills keywords, and see if you can weave those into your cover letter (and, of course, your resume, too).
Keep an eye out for words such as:
- Critical Thinking
- Leadership
- Teamwork
- Problem Solving
- Decision Making
- Time Management
- Emotional Intelligence
- Trust-Building
- Empathy
- Attention to Detail
- Creativity
- Adaptability
- Resilience
One point of caution: avoid “keyword stuffing,” or adding in so many keywords that your letter sounds clunky. You’re writing for humans, not algorithms! Simply tweak your language slightly so any algorithms reading will like it, too. 😎
Tip 3: Make it Role-Specific
The strongest cover letters go beyond the information in your resume to show, in vivid, memorable detail, how you’re a great candidate for the specific role.
So, beyond using keywords, think of examples you can swap in or out depending on the role you’re applying to.
If a job description really emphasizes they’re looking for someone with great time management, they might be less interested in a time you demonstrated creativity—but they’ll definitely want to know about your experience juggling multiple deadlines as a writer for your community college paper (for example!).
To organize your different anecdotes, consider creating a “bank” of examples/details that you can pick from for each cover letter you write. That way, you can make your cover letters role-specific without writing them from scratch each time.
A “bank” might sound like you need a lot of different anecdotes. But really, five to six examples will probably be enough to cover most of your bases. Between the introduction and conclusion, you might only use three or so examples in each letter.
And remember: it’s perfectly fine to draw on internship, volunteer, or personal experiences as appropriate! So aim for the right examples for the role, even if they’re from a different type of role or from outside your work life.
When you do land that interview, the story bank will also be helpful for prepping for your chats with the recruiter and the hiring manager. Think of a few details you can use to expand on the stories in your cover letter, as well as a couple more examples you can draw on to highlight similar skills.
In Conclusion
Remember: the cover letter is all about letting the recruiter and hiring manager get to know you so they can understand what you’ll bring to the role.
So, even as you’re adapting each letter to fit the role, YOUR personality and YOUR experience need to shine through. Look at this letter as an opportunity to showcase who you are and flex those human skills, and you’ll be on the right track to a successful application.
Ready to uplevel your skills and supercharge your tech career? Get on the waitlist for Beyond the Code, our free virtual course equipping early-career talent with in-demand leadership skills for an AI-driven world. This is a great course for people with 0–5 years of experience in the tech industry.
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