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If you want to jump right to letter format, click here → Business Letter Format Video: writing the cover letter | What Is a Cover Letter? | What the Letter Has to Do | Research | Business Letter Format | Before You Submit | Sources |
What Is a Cover Letter?
A cover letter is a one-page business letter that accompanies your resume and argues, in your own voice, that you should be interviewed for one specific job.
Your resume and your cover letter divide the work between them. The resume is evidence of your past, formatted as fragments so a reviewer can scan it. The cover letter is an argument about your future, written in sentences and addressed to a person. The resume shows you meet the requirements; the letter shows you understand the employer’s situation and want this job rather than any job.
The letter is usually opened by the hiring manager, after the resume has cleared an initial screen. She has a stack of them on her desk, so anything that reads as generic — a letter that could have been sent to any employer — gets set down. Everything below is about not being that letter.
For anything on the resume side, see the resume notes.
What the Letter Has to Do
Every draft is measured against these four goals.
- Get read at a glance.
- Show understanding of the employer’s business and priorities.
- Give evidence you’re a good fit for the team.
- Show enthusiasm for this job in particular.
Research
Do this before you write.
- Read the job posting. Mark the responsibilities and qualifications you plan to speak to.
- Read the company website. Start with the About page. Note what the company does, its mission, and the tone it uses about itself. A design shop and a bank want different letters.
- Check LinkedIn and other social media platforms. Recent posts tell you what the company is talking about now — a launch, a hire, an industry shift. That gives you something specific to reference.
- Find the hiring manager’s name. Call or send a short email to someone at the company asking who the hiring manager is. Also, pay attention to the job announcement, which may include information on who is involved in the hiring process. LinkedIn can also be a good resource occasionally.
- If able: send a smart question. One brief, substantive question about the role, sent by LinkedIn or email, gives you an opening line — “Thanks for the note last week about …” — and puts you above the anonymous stack.
Business Letter Format
A cover letter is a business letter, so it follows business letter format.
Page Setup
- Margins. One inch on all four sides.
- Font. The same font as your resume, at 11 or 12 point, so the two documents read as a set.
- Spacing. Single-spaced. Left-aligned. Blank line between blocks. No paragraph indents.
- Length. One page. Cut content to fit rather than shrink the font or margins.
Blocks, Top to Bottom
A business letter is built from a fixed sequence of blocks, in the order below. A reader who opens your file is hunting for particular things in particular places; your job is to put them where she is already looking.
| RETURN ADDRESS | Reuse the contact block from the top of your resume so the two documents match: name, city and state, phone, email. No street address needed. |
| DATE | Month, day, year, written out: March 14, 2026, not 3/14/26. |
| INSIDE ADDRESS | The recipient’s name and title, the company name, and the company’s street address. If you can’t find a street address, name plus company is enough. |
| SALUTATION | “Dear Ms. Rivera:” — colon in business correspondence, not a comma. Use a name whenever you can find one. When you truly can’t, “Dear Hiring Manager:” is the fallback. Skip “To Whom It May Concern”; it signals you didn’t try. |
| BODY | Three paragraphs: an opener, a middle paragraph presenting a problem the employer faces and your evidence you can solve it, and a close that asks for the interview. Full text shown in the sample below. |
| CLOSE & SIGNATURE | “Sincerely,” is standard. “Best regards,” also works. Leave four blank lines for a signature if the letter will be printed, then your typed name. |
| ENCLOSURE | One line at the bottom listing what else is attached. Enclosure: Résumé. Use Enclosures: (with the s) if more than one. |
A sample letter is below. The labels in [square brackets] name each block for you and are not part of the letter itself, so leave them out of your own. The three body paragraphs are written as guidance you can adapt.
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[RETURN ADDRESS]
Applicant Name
City, State ZIP Phone · Email [DATE]
Month Day, Year
[INSIDE ADDRESS]
Recipient Name, Title
Company Name Street Address City, State ZIP [SALUTATION]
Dear Ms. Recipient:
[BODY]
[Paragraph 1 — Open]
Cut “My name is X and I am applying for Y that I saw on Z.” Every reader knows why you are writing; using the opening to say it wastes it. Lead instead with why the job interests you and what you bring, or, if you have one, with a personal connection or a prior conversation with someone at the company. Skip humor. Skip platitudes like passionate, detail-oriented team player. Say something specific, and short. [Paragraph 2 — Their problem, your evidence]
Name a challenge the company or its industry is facing — this is where the research pays off — and give one accomplishment that shows you have handled something like it before. One is enough. Two skills apply to almost any job right now: adaptability, and the ability to learn quickly. If a brief example demonstrates either, use it. Then point forward: how the work you have done applies to the work this role calls for. Don’t rehash the résumé; extend from it. [Paragraph 3 — Why them, and close]
State what draws you to this company in particular, drawing on what you found in your research. Ask for the interview in plain language. Enthusiasm — the kind that reads as real interest — belongs here. Flattery, over-eagerness, and anything that sounds like desperation don’t. [CLOSE & SIGNATURE]
Sincerely,
[signature]
Applicant Name
[ENCLOSURE]
Enclosure: Résumé
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Before You Submit
Details put good letters in the no pile late in the process.
- Cut anything that repeats the résumé. The reader has the résumé.
- Get a reader who will be blunt. Ask two specific questions: What is my main point? and What is wrong with this? Anything vaguer produces vague feedback.
- Proofread after spell check. Spell check passes correctly-spelled wrong words.
- Verify names and titles. The company name, the hiring manager’s name, and the job title — every time you tailor the letter for a new posting.
- Keep this letter as your template. The next posting is a tailoring job, not a rewrite. The research and the strong sentences carry forward.
Sources & Further Reading
Everything referenced above, if you want to go to the originals.
- Elainy Mata and Amy Gallo, “How to Write a Cover Letter” (video) — assigned viewing, embedded at the top of this page. Source of the research sequence, finding the hiring manager, opening lines, and the template-and-tailor workflow.
- Amy Gallo, “How to Write a Cover Letter”, Harvard Business Review — source of the strategic material: research, opening, personal value, enthusiasm, tone, length, and feedback.
- Purdue OWL, Basic Business Letters — source of the format section: block format, page setup, and the address, salutation, close, signature, and enclosure blocks.