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Programmer Cover Letter Help
Tifa_Need_Help
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
Hi i keep applying for jobs for software web or mobile developer. The problem though is that I haven't had a single interview from them. I believe its because of my cover letter. here it is:
Dear Hiring Manager,
If you are looking for Software Developer with proven ability to develop high performance application, please consider my attached Curriculum vitae.
With Bachelor’s Degree of Information Technology and a year of hands on experience in Software and Web. Additionally I have a well-honed skills in Android Development and can work well with databases including MySQL, SQLite and SQL Server. I am proficient in C#.Net, Visual Basic .Net, Java, C++, Android-SDK, PHP, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and JQuery. I am confident that I will be a great asset to your organization.
My work experiences includes but is not limited to:
· Became part of Web Development Projects.
· Designed PDF Templates using CSS3 and HTML.
· Developed a Computerized Grading System using C#.Net.
· Developed a Tourist Guide application in Android platform.
The key strengths and qualifications that I possess for success in this position includes:
· Enthusiastic in areas of my position and industry.
· Ability to work under pressure.
· Eager to learn new things.
· Highly motivated.
· Problem isolation and analysis.
· Software quality testing.
· Can work independently or as a team.
I am very interested in the job position offered, and I know that my career experience and education offers just what you are looking for in a candidate. I have listed my specific programming capabilities and skills within my attached resume. Please feel free to contact me at xxx00000or emailme@email.com. Thank you for your time and consideration. I very much look forward to speaking with you further regarding this position.
Sincerely,
Firstname, Lastname
please help. Criticize my cover letter. I want to know whats the problem.
Dear Hiring Manager,
If you are looking for Software Developer with proven ability to develop high performance application, please consider my attached Curriculum vitae.
With Bachelor’s Degree of Information Technology and a year of hands on experience in Software and Web. Additionally I have a well-honed skills in Android Development and can work well with databases including MySQL, SQLite and SQL Server. I am proficient in C#.Net, Visual Basic .Net, Java, C++, Android-SDK, PHP, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and JQuery. I am confident that I will be a great asset to your organization.
My work experiences includes but is not limited to:
· Became part of Web Development Projects.
· Designed PDF Templates using CSS3 and HTML.
· Developed a Computerized Grading System using C#.Net.
· Developed a Tourist Guide application in Android platform.
The key strengths and qualifications that I possess for success in this position includes:
· Enthusiastic in areas of my position and industry.
· Ability to work under pressure.
· Eager to learn new things.
· Highly motivated.
· Problem isolation and analysis.
· Software quality testing.
· Can work independently or as a team.
I am very interested in the job position offered, and I know that my career experience and education offers just what you are looking for in a candidate. I have listed my specific programming capabilities and skills within my attached resume. Please feel free to contact me at xxx00000or emailme@email.com. Thank you for your time and consideration. I very much look forward to speaking with you further regarding this position.
Sincerely,
Firstname, Lastname
please help. Criticize my cover letter. I want to know whats the problem.
0
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Posts
"With Bachelor’s Degree of Information Technology and a year of hands on experience in Software and Web."
This is an incomplete sentence. With your degree and experience...what?
Why are you interested in the job? Put in a sentence about why you're interested in that company specifically.
Mention what you did in your previous positions. Your cover letter is currently very broad. You say you have all this experience but you offer no in-depth explanation of how and where you got this experience. In addition you want to mention how your input in your previous positions benefitted the company. This is very important - companies want to know that you have been a benefitial employee at prior postings.
Mention how your experience could benefit the company you're applying to. This will require being very aware of what they're looking for in their job posting and of what the company does. For example:
"I believe my experience in Android-SDK and Java programming, as well as my aptitude in MySQL and JQuery makes me an ideal candidate for this position because some bullshit the company does that uses aforementioned skills."
Start your cover letter with "I would like to express my interest in [position] at [Company]." Or something similar.
Your key stregths and qualifications are a bunch of hot air unless you mention your previous positions and how you used them. Anyone can say they can work under pressure and they can work well as a team. You need to cite a position where these strengths were exhibited.
"Having worked in a start up environment I have gained aptitude in juggling multiple projects with similar deadlines, and lending my expertise to various teams" for example.
I'll probably have more stuff later.
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Personally it sounds a little forced to me? That's more of a personal thing though, YMMV depending on your area. Being less formal, more natural (but still grammatically correct) worked okay for me here in the bay area.
People say different things about cover letters, but what ive heard is that its about a) why you want to work there and b) why you would be badass at that position.
Additionally, before you submit your cover letter to anyone, you should make sure to have the best writer or editor you know proofread it. There are several mechanical errors in your writing and that will doom you very quickly.
Intro
The key here: Personalize
Get as specific as possible with this. In an ideal world, you want to greet a person by name, and mention a specific job opening at their company that you are interested. I know you may not have all of this. I got my job through cold calling. I get it. However, at the bare minimum, you should:
- Include the company name
- Write briefly about why you want that specific position at that company. If you aren't applying for a specific position, look up the company's website and see if you can find one that interest you. If not, you're already on their page; look a little at what they do, their mission, and their culture, and write briefly about why that resonates with you.
This tells companies that you think you think you are a good fit for THEM, while your current cover letter tells them why you are a good fit for any company with a checkbook.
Body:
The keys here: Demonstrate and Relate
Demonstrate: Ask anyone who does recruiting, and they will likely tell you that putting things like "I'm highly motivated and eager to learn" on your resume and/or cover letter doesn't mean anything. But how can it not mean anything? It is a statement of some of your good qualities. That's good right? Well, not by itself. Those are things that just about anyone can say because they don't say anything. In short, talk is cheap. Instead of saying that you "work well under pressure", write about how you have dealt with tight deadlines. Instead of claiming that you are "eager to learn", talk about how you have taught yourself new technologies to meet evolving requirements in the past. Same goes for more concrete skills. Don't just say that you "know Java, HTML, and SQL". Talk about that cool web app you built with a java back end and an integrated database and what benefit it provided to the company. That last piece is important so don't leave it out. Also, numbers here are great if you have them. Talking about how that app improved your companies workflow is good, but talking about how it reduced average turn around time on help tickets by 50% is better.
Relate:If you take one thing away from this post let it be this: Companies do not care about what you know or what you did by itself. They care about what you can do for them. Am I saying you should leave off skills and work experience? Of course not. I just gave you a big spiel on how to present it to them. What I'm saying is that you should include them with purpose. First off, no more bulleted lists. Second, you don't necessarily want to list all of your relevant experience. That is what your resume/Curriculum vitae is for. What you want to do is talk about some highlights of what you have done for somebody else, and relate it to what you can do for them. Remember that cool web app you told them about earlier? Don't stop with how cool it was and how much it did for that other company. Tell them about how this means that you'll be right at home at that new web development position they have. This is the single best way to sell yourself to most companies. Tell them about how what you have already done prepared you to do what they need done, and prepared you to do it well.
Note:This is also where you get them to look at your resume. However, you don't do it by just saying "Look at my resume". Mention it in passing while talking about all the cool things you've done. What's the difference? Instead of just asking to look, this gives them a reason to do it.
Conclusion:
The hard part is over. Just reiterate that you are excited to work for them and that you think you'd be a great fit due to the above. Then leave some contact info if they need to get a hold of you for whatever reason.
Review
Thought you were done, didn't you? Not quite. One more thing I noticed in your current cover letter is that you have a lot of typos and grammatical errors. Keep in mind that the person reading your cover letter is likely going through stacks of them, and they are often looking for any excuse to pitch yours and move on to the next one. You just gave them half a dozen. As such, make sure you have a reasonable review process before you send anything in.
Minimum: Write your cover letter. Read it over a couple times looking for spelling/grammatical errors, or things that just sound bad or that you think you could improve. Sleep on it. Go back and read it one more time the next day with fresh eyes.
Better: In addition to the above, send it to someone else who you can trust to give you some honest comments. Get their feedback and make changes.
Best: In addition to the above, send it to at least two people: One from the industry in which you are looking for a job, another who specializes in writing of some sort. Get their feedback and make changes.
You may note that I emphasize giving examples of past accomplishments. It sounds like you have some experience, but with no examples in your cover letter, it's hard to be sure. If you don't, look for things like internships and outside projects as well. Never had an internship? Have you done any volunteer work(in a relevant field) or work on any open source projects etc.? If not, you might want to consider it.
I'm sure this sounds like a lot of work, and it is. Looking for a job is a full time job, but do it right, and you will see results.
This, definitely. I'm one of the senior developers who reviews job applications at my company, and I automatically discard resumes with more than one spelling or obvious grammatical error. My reasoning is that if the applicant can't be bothered to put a professional level of effort into their resume, I can't trust them to put a professional level of effort into their programming, test cases, interactions with our clients, or other job duties. (I don't expect that everyone has perfect spelling or grammar, especially since we get quite a lot of ESL applicants - but even if they don't have a friend with good editing skills, there are companies out there that offer proofreading services.)
I'm more lenient with cover letters that have been tailored to our company, because given how many applications most job seekers have to send out, I don't expect them to get every single one professionally reviewed. The cover letter you posted, though, is clearly not customized and still has obvious errors in it, so I would give it a pass as well.
You didn't ask for advice about your resume, but I'd highly recommend having it proofread by a friend with very good language skills or a professional. Any sections of your cover letter that you expect to re-use should also be checked for mistakes. Paragraphs directed at a specific company may or may not need to be reviewed - I don't know if other people hiring are also less picky in such cases.
Instead of a list of qualities I would go with one or two specific examples of when you successfully added value to an organization in a capacity similar to the job description.