A cover letter has one job: give the reader a reason to look at your CV with interest instead of skimming it. Three or four short paragraphs, under a page, written for this specific company. Recruiters can tell within a sentence whether a letter was written for them or pasted from a template, and generic letters do more harm than sending none.
Do you even need one?
If the advert asks for a cover letter, yes, always. If the application form has an optional field for it, yes again, because a good letter is a chance to explain things your CV can’t: why you want this job, why you’re changing careers, why you’re moving cities. If it’s a quick-apply on a job board with no field for it, skip it.
In Germany and Austria a cover letter (Anschreiben) is still expected for most professional jobs. In much of the rest of Europe it’s common but less formal. For many tech companies it’s optional and often unread, though the ones who do read it remember a good one.
The structure
Header and greeting. Your name and contact details, the date, and the company’s name. Address a real person if you can find one (“Dear Ms Popescu”); LinkedIn or the company website usually tells you who the hiring manager is. If you can’t find a name, “Dear Hiring Manager” is fine. Avoid “To whom it may concern”, which sounds like a complaint letter.
Paragraph 1: why you’re writing. Name the role and give the single strongest reason you fit, in one or two sentences. Don’t open with “I am writing to apply for…”; the reader knows. Open with the point.
Paragraph 2: proof. Pick two or three achievements that match what the advert asks for and describe them with numbers. This is the longest paragraph and the one that does the work.
Paragraph 3: why this company. Something specific: a product you use, a market they’re entering, a value they state that matches how you work. One honest sentence about why them beats three flattering ones.
Paragraph 4: close. Say you’d like to talk, mention availability or notice period if relevant, and thank them. Two sentences.
Sign-off: “Kind regards” or “Best regards”, then your name.
A full example
Dear Ms Georgescu,
Your advert for a Customer Success Manager mentions reducing churn among small-business clients, which is exactly what I’ve spent the last two years doing at Clearline Telecom.
I manage a portfolio of around 180 SME accounts. When I took it over, monthly churn was 3.1%; it’s now 1.8%, mainly because I introduced quarterly check-in calls and a simple health score in HubSpot that flags accounts before they go quiet. Before that I spent two years in frontline support, handling 60+ customer contacts a day with a 96% satisfaction rating, so I know what customers are frustrated by before they ever reach an account manager.
I’ve used your invoicing software at my partner’s bakery for a year, and the onboarding is the best I’ve seen in a small-business tool. I’d like to help more of your customers get that far and stay.
I’d be glad to talk about how I could support your SME team. I’m available for an interview any day next week and have a one-month notice period.
Kind regards,
Ioana Dumitru
About 230 words. Every paragraph says something only Ioana could say about this particular job.
Variations
Graduates and first jobs. (Your CV matters even more here; see how to write a resume with no experience.) Swap the achievements paragraph for projects, internships, part-time work or volunteering, and lean more on motivation: why this field, what you’ve done to prepare. Specificity still wins. “Built a sales dashboard for my university’s career fair, used by 40 exhibitors” is better than “passionate about data”.
Career changers. This is where a cover letter matters most. Address the change in the first paragraph rather than hoping nobody notices, then connect your past experience to the new job explicitly. A teacher moving into corporate training should spell out how designing lessons for 30 students maps onto designing workshops for 30 employees.
Employment gaps. One calm sentence is enough: “After two years caring for a family member, I’m returning to work full time and have refreshed my payroll certification.” No apologies, no long explanations.
German applications. More formal (our CV vs resume guide explains what else differs in Europe). Use the full business letter format with addresses, a subject line (Betreff) naming the role, and the formal “Sie”. Mention your earliest start date and, if asked, your salary expectation.
Mistakes that get letters skipped
Repeating your CV in paragraph form. The reader has your CV; the letter should add context and motivation.
Talking only about what you want (“This role would be a great opportunity for me to grow”). Turn it round: what will you do for them?
Wrong company name. It happens more often than you’d think when people reuse letters. Read the final version once just for names.
Going over one page. Aim for 200 to 350 words.
Clichés: “I believe I would be a great fit”, “I am a hard-working team player”, “think outside the box”. Cut every sentence that could appear in another applicant’s letter.
Match the letter to your CV
Use the same name, contact details and, ideally, the same fonts and accent colour as your CV, so the two look like a set. Save both as PDFs with clear file names (Ioana_Dumitru_CV.pdf, Ioana_Dumitru_Cover_Letter.pdf).
We don’t have a dedicated cover letter editor yet, but your CV is the bigger half of the job: build it with one of our templates, use the strongest results from it in paragraph two of your letter, and if you need help with those results, our resume summary examples are a good source of wording.