Funny thing happened today. I got a ridiculous number of – frankly – horrible cover letters this morning. I was starting to wonder if I’d fallen into some weird nexus of bad grammar and poor decision making, when I received the letter below – so well written that I knew I was going to talk to this person if they were even _remotely_ qualified for the role. It’s clearly written for the position being applied for, it’s personable – but not too much, no typos – I could go on, but instead I’ll let it speak for itself (with the permission from the author – they just asked that I use the name “Max Power” in place of their real name):
Hi,
I saw your posting on craigslist for the QA Engineer position so I’m submitting my resume for review. I have some experience in QA although it’s been a few years since I’ve actually had “QA” in my job description. But despite that, I feel that it applies to nearly every position that I’ve held.
I’m currently a Web Developer and I get to build online courses in over ten languages, which is pretty interesting and it requires attention to detail. Dealing with several pages of text in Thai can get a bit confusing so it’s easy to overlook small details like shifting an image two pixels to the right. After doing this for awhile I started to wonder if maybe I’m becoming too picky about the details. Or maybe I should find an outlet to express my nitpicking tendencies. Such as when I was a Test Developer many moons ago and I was encouraged to look for problems, no matter how small. I really enjoyed being able to use one of my strengths and to help improve an already great product. Now, seeing this job posting, I think it’s a great opportunity to get back into something that I enjoyed doing and that I was good at.
I think that I can help ZoomInfo because I’m detail-oriented, a quick learner and I have the mind-set. Although I may not have the years of necessary experience, I’m hopeful that you’ll give me a chance. One of the best things about my career has been that I’ve always had the opportunity to do the job because people were willing to give me a chance and I hate to disappoint. I’ve attached my resume as a text file so please take a look at it. I hope that I can speak with someone a little more about the position and the company. If so I’ll try to bring some interesting stories – like how I scored four touch downs in one game.
Thanks for your time and I hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Max Power
Good to Know 
03/22/2012 at 3:49 am
Max Power, he’s the man who’s name you’d love to touch! But you mustn’t touch! His name sounds good in your ear, but when you say it, you mustn’t fear! ‘Cause his name can be said by anyone!
10/18/2012 at 8:29 pm
I find this cover letter too wordy. After reading numerous posts about how busy the HRs are and that they have got only an attention span of 20 secs to scan over my cover letter, this does not stand a chance.
PS: I personally love this and did apply to many jobs with such a cover letter, but never landed an interview.
10/18/2012 at 9:09 pm
I appreciate that, I do – and, yes, many HR reps will scan this and it won’t impact them positively. That said, it does not impact them negatively, either. There are recruiters – and, we’re not HR reps, it’s a separate and distinct department at the smarter companies – who _will_ read it, and it will have a positive impact on them.