How to E-mail Your Cover Letter

Ever had trouble trying to email a cover letter with your resume?

At a recent career fair, I spoke with an HR professional who reads loads of resumes every day. He made this plea to me: "Please tell people that just because they're sending resumes by email doesn't mean they can get away with a poor cover letter, or no cover letter at all."

So don't cut corners. Here are five ways to make sure your email cover letters deliver a powerful impact when sent with your resume.

1) Avoid character assassination

Email is quirky. Bullets, underlines, bold or italic characters won't show up correctly when you paste them from a word processing document into an email message.

Avoid this problem by first saving your cover letter in plain text format (ASCII). Then replace special characters with ASCII-friendly ones, like these: dashes (-), asterisks (*) and arrows (>).

2) Caution! Wide load

If your cover letter is too wide, it may produce strange line breaks on the reader's screen, which can hurt readability.

Solution? Set the width of your cover letter to about 4-3/4", or less than 80 characters wide.

3) Follow the right order

When sending your cover letter and resume in an email message, your cover letter should come first and your resume second. For easier reading, include a line that clearly separates the two documents, like this:

==== END COVER LETTER ====

4) Get personal

If you know someone influential at your target company, say so! This can help establish a rapport between you and your reader.

Here's an example cover letter beginning that can do this:

"Dear Employer (insert name if known),
"George Best suggested I contact you regarding your possible need for ..."

5) Enthusiasm sells

Don't go overboard and tell readers that you're a stockholder, for instance. But do try to convey your desire to work for the company. If you feel strongly that the position you're after is a perfect match to your skills and experience, say so!

Following these five tips will help ensure that your email cover letters get the attention they deserve.

Best of luck to you!

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Kevin Donlin owns Edina, Minn.-based Guaranteed Resumes. Since 1995, his firm has provided resumes, cover letters and online job-search assistance to clients in 48 states and 23 countries.

Kevin has been interviewed by USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur Magazine, WCCO Radio, WLTE Radio and KMSP TV, among others. His articles have appeared in the National Business Employment Weekly, Home Office Computing magazine, Twin Cities Employment Weekly, the cnet online magazine and others.

Kevin can be reached through his Web site Guaranteed Resumes.

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