What to Cover in Your Cover Letter
5 Mistakes Recruiters See All the Time (and What to Do Instead)
We know. You spent hours updating your resume. You entered your employment history into tiny little boxes even though you just uploaded a document containing your entire employment history. And now we want a cover letter too? Unfortunately, yes. Not because recruiters are sitting around hoping for more things to read. A good cover letter tells us something your resume can't. Your resume tells us what you've done, where your cover letter should tell us who you are, why you're interested, and why this particular opportunity makes sense for you. And after reading a lot of cover letters, we've noticed the same mistakes tend to show up again and again. Here are five of the biggest faux pas and what to do instead:
1. Introduce Yourself
One of the most common cover letter mistakes is also one of the most understandable: walking us through your resume in paragraph form:
"I started my career at Organization A, where I did X. Then I moved to Organization B, where I did Y. Currently, I work at Organization C, where I do Z."
We know what your resume says. We just read it. Instead, use the opening of your cover letter to tell us something we don't already know. What's the thread connecting the different parts of your career? What kind of work gets you excited? If you've had an unconventional career path, how do those seemingly unrelated experiences actually connect? Think of your resume as the evidence and your cover letter as the explanation. Give us the context that helps us understand the person behind the bullet points.
2. Make It Personal
There are few things more deflating than reading a cover letter about how thrilled someone is to join…a completely different organization. We understand that you're probably applying to multiple jobs. You don't need to pretend this is the only organization whose careers page you've visited in the last six months. But your cover letter should make us feel like you intentionally applied to this one. Take a few minutes to look at the organization's mission, programs, recent work, or strategic priorities. Then tell us what genuinely caught your attention. There's a huge difference between, "I'm excited about the opportunity to work for a mission-driven organization," and, "I was particularly interested in your expansion of your youth literacy program. As a former teacher, I understand the struggles facing educators and would love to be a part of an organization that focuses on supporting them in their work.”
3. Tell Me Why
"Passionate" may be the hardest-working word in cover letters. Candidates are passionate about education. Passionate about housing. Passionate about the environment. Passionate about strategic planning. Occasionally even passionate about Excel. There's nothing wrong with passion. But simply telling us you have it doesn't tell us very much. Show us where it comes from. Maybe you've volunteered in this area for years. Maybe your current job introduced you to a problem you now want to spend your career helping solve. Maybe you've followed the organization's work and one particular initiative changed the way you think about the field.
Even a simple explanation can be powerful. Instead of, "I am passionate about ending homelessness,” try, "While volunteering at a local shelter, I saw firsthand how cyclical homelessness can be, and how difficult that cycle can be to break.” Now we understand something about you. You don't need a dramatic personal story. You need a specific one.
4. Don't Talk Too Much
We love enthusiasm. We love context. We do not love a manifesto. A cover letter isn't your autobiography, so keep in mind length as you draft yours. Aim for roughly one page. Introduce yourself, explain why you're interested, highlight the two or three pieces of your experience that are most relevant, and then let us move on to your resume. Remember: the goal of a cover letter isn't to answer every question we could possibly have about you. It's to make us want to ask you more questions.
5. Assume We've Already Met Claude AI can be incredibly useful when you're applying for jobs. It can help you organize your thoughts, point out awkward sentences, and help you identify which parts of your experience are most relevant to a job description. But as a candidate, it’s important to remember that recruiters are familiar with the work of Claude and all its artificial friends. After reading enough generated cover letters, the patterns quickly become obvious. Every candidate is "thrilled to apply,” and has a "unique blend" of skills. Everyone is eager to "leverage their experience" while "driving meaningful impact" at our "dynamic organization." The problem isn't that you used AI. The problem is when AI removes you from the application. Use it to brainstorm. Use it to edit. Use it to ask, "Does this make sense?" or "Am I repeating myself?" But don't ask it to manufacture your interest in an organization and then send whatever it gives you. And then, most importantly, read the finished product and ask yourself: Would I ever actually say this? If the answer is no, change it.