Sunday, January 27, 2008

Cover Letter For Resume: AIDA Cover Letter Strategy Part 2

Ok, so what part of your cover letter for resume always gets read?

The Post Script. Are you adding one? If someone sees a P.S. at the bottom of anything and they can’t help but be drawn to it… it’s human nature... but you can’t put “just anything” in the P.S.



Post Scripts have to be brief, but contain information that's powerful enough to warrant an independent mention. I would NOT put something like:

P.S. References available on request.

Because while it is brief… it’s not worth a personal mention and doesn’t “sale” you at all… to be honest it even deflates the power of the P.S. because it’s anti-climactic.

No, instead put something substantial that caters to what the employer needs, for example something like:

P.S. At Sampson’s International I maintained a high-volume inventory system and handled the issues that come with one. I’d love to sit down and discuss my experiences and solutions that reduced lead times by as much as half and improved overall inventory throughput by 20%.

Use something tangible that you've done, and if at all possible something measurable (the "by half" and "20%" parts). This shows your experience instead of just telling it (more on showing vs. telling in a future article) and your insight on their needs will approach them on a deeper level of rapport.

Two more quick points about this P.S.

1) During the interview don’t spill all the beans on everything you've done to fix problems they may be having… you want to sale yourself, not give away free solutions and...

2) When this catches their “leaping around” eyes… there’s a good chance they’ll head over to your work experience on your resume and pay special attention to the “Sampson’s International” part. Knowing this has its advantages...

A powerful post script is one example of leveraging a hire-person’s attention and creating interest, step two in the AIDA process.

So now you know that you can direct focus onto parts of your cover letter and resume. Good stuff. The Amazing Resume Creator accomplishes this with strategic placement of A.G.I.s (or Attention-Getting Ingredients). Just one of its benefits.



Stay tuned and we'll examine how to create desire with your cover letter, that's the next piece in the Cover Letter For Resume AIDA battle plan.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

you define what is the importance of well finished cover latter i have a site which related with cover letter Resume Cover Letter Samples please give me suggestion fr better this.

Regards
Laura Brasnan

Monika said...

Writing good a cover letter is as important as writing a good resume. So the points you have written about are very crucial and should be kept in mind while writing one for job application.

cv said...

This might be perfect for U.S and U.K, but when it comes to India we never use Cover letters! Am moving to U.S and thanks for showing me the importance of cover letters! cheers


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