5 Common Cover Letter Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

In today’s competitive job market, it is so important to have a stand-out, memorable cover letter. Unfortunately, many keen graduates sometimes miss the mark and don’t advance from the first stage of the process due to tiny mistakes.

Try to avoid these five common cover letter mistakes below in order to ensure your application gets to the next stage in the job process.

1. Repetitive and boring

Re-using the same cover letter for every job you apply for will sure save you time, but it won’t win you any favours with hiring managers.

A generic cover letter can make you seem lazy and uninterested in the company and the role. The employer wants to know exactly why you want to work in this role, so you must tailor your cover letter to the job specification and personalise it to the company.

2. Spelling errors

It can look very unprofessional to hiring managers if your cover letter is full of typos, or worse – if you have spelt their name/the company’s name wrong!

In fact, 70% of hiring managers say they would automatically dismiss a cover letter with a typo (Forbes). Do yourself a favour and have someone read over your cover letter before you send it off. A fresh pair of eyes are beneficial to spot marginal errors that you might not have picked up on in the first place.

3. Highlighting weaknesses

Don’t apologise for any missing experience!

Instead of drawing attention to your weaknesses, emphasise the strengths that you do have. Highlighting where you don’t meet all the job criteria can make you come across as un-confident and ill-equipped.

Instead, be sure to focus on the transferrable skills that you do have that can relate to what you’re missing.

4. Don’t write too much

This also applies to your CV. Keep it concise – think of your cover letter as the highlights reel of your career.

Remember, that you are trying to entice the hiring manager to ask you for an interview so try not to overload them with too much information. 91% of recruiters claim that two-pages is the perfect CV length (Reed).

5. Not following instruction

Often, the employer will request for specific information to be included. This is why it is super important to read the job description to ensure you are including everything that is required.

The last thing you want is to look like you didn’t read the instructions and are unable to follow their requests.