How to write a cover letter

Transcripton of Arbetsförmedlingens Ny i Sverige-podd: How to write a cover letter

Intro music (FIRST STEP MUSIC)

(Johanna Pålsson)

How do you write the cover letter and what should have

in mind while writing one? The cover letter is supposed

to get you to the job interview, so today's topic is the cover letter.

My guest today is Omid Rahmanian, job-seeking expert

from the Swedish Public Employment Service.

My name is Johanna Pålsson and you're listening to

the New In Sweden podcast. Hi, Omid, and welcome

to today's episode.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Hello, Johanna. Thanks for having me.

(Johanna Pålsson)

All right, so today we're going to talk about the cover letter

and how to write one and why you should have one while

applying for a job.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah, we are.

(Johanna Pålsson)

So, first off, why is it important to even have one?

(Omid Rahmanian)

Well, it's important because when you're applying for a job,

I usually describe your application papers, your CV

and your cover letter, as a toolbox and a way to use your tools.

So let's say you have your CV, and that's all your hard skills,

right? So you put your educational background, you're talking

about my experiences.

Let's say if you're a programmer, so you can tell them,

like, I can code in Python, I can code in C#, Java, .NET

and so on and so forth, so that's your hard skills, right?

So when you go over to your cover letter,

this is where you show how you're using your tools.

So the CV is the toolbox, and the cover letter is a way to show,

well, this is how I built this table, this is how I did this.

So that is one of the key aspects of why

a cover letter is actually very important.

(Johanna Pålsson)

A way to describe yourself for the position that you're applying for

and for the employer to understand why you're a good fit.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Exactly, exactly, that is so important, because it's... I mean,

of course, when you get the CV, you get a feeling,

well, this person has the proper qualifications,

but you're also wondering, well, who is this person?

As a professional, that is.

(Johanna Pålsson)

Yeah, 'cause who are we anyways?

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah. It's not a key life question here.

What is the meaning of life? Who are you?

It's about who are you as a professional person, yeah.

(Johanna Pålsson)

So besides the part of describing yourself, maybe your soft skills,

what else should be included in the cover letter?

(Omid Rahmanian)

So the thing is this, that a common mistake people do

when they're writing the cover letter is that they only see

the cover letter as a way to describe themselves,

and one of the things they do is not only do

they describe themselves but they go intimate,

and when I'm talking intimate, it's they give out private details,

like I have a dog, or I have a family,

or I like to walk my dog or I like to climb mountains

because that is my interest.

And you know what, if in a way you're gonna work with dogs,

or maybe you're gonna work with children or something like that,

or you're gonna work at a mountain as a ranger or something,

well, that might be relevant to give that kind of information.

But let's say you're applying for the coder we have,

then that's not relevant. So you need to stay professional

and make sure that what you're writing is relevant for the job

that you're applying to.

Secondly, a common mistake people do is when we're talking

about the cover letter and you're supposed to talk about yourself

or show yourself to the employer is that they actually

forget to tell the employer why they're applying for the job.

(Johanna Pålsson)

I think that's really important to do.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah, so I'm a coder and I've applied a job

for, let's say, Spotify. Why? Why did I choose Spotify?

Why did I not choose Microsoft or Google

or maybe this consultant firm?

Why specifically did I choose to hand in my application to Spotify?

And giving that a paragraph, at least in the beginning, to tell

the employer this and this is the reason why I choose your company,

why I think you're a great employer,

why I want to work at your place,

I think that is a key component that a lot of people

actually miss when they're writing their cover letter.

(Johanna Pålsson)

I believe I missed that a couple of times myself,

not really addressing to the employer.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah, me too, and that is...

We had discussions with a lot of employers and what they said,

not only do people miss this part in the cover letter, they actually

miss this part in the interview as well.

(Johanna Pålsson)

Really?

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah, because sometimes... I mean, the employer asks...

One of the common first questions, now we're in

the interview, what they ask is, like, why did you apply for this job?

And a lot of people go, uh, uh, uh...

(Johanna Pålsson)

They really don't know.

(Omid Rahmanian)

I need money. (laughs) Yeah.

(Johanna Pålsson)

So to address the cover letter towards the specific employer

and be personal but not too private, so tell why you are a good

fit but not what you're doing on your leisure time, if not relevant,

of course, for the position.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah, I mean, if it's relevant, like let's say you have no prior

leadership skills from your previous job,

but you've been a leader in football for, like, 10 years, so

you've been either a coach or maybe you play in a team where

you're captain, so you have that leadership skill, but it's still

your leisure time, but then you can show that and show that,

well, I do have leadership skills, just not in the way you thought

I had it.

So you need to figure out, if I'm putting in private information

about myself, what is the relevance here?

How will this information get me closer to the job?

And if your answer to that is, oh, they might enjoy me as a person,

that is not... that is not a... that is not a reason to put in that.

And if they enjoy you as a person, leave that part to the interview,

because that's a more social situation where you actually get

to meet the person and then you get that feeling,

the energy and the vibe and all of that,

but try to keep it as professional as you can

when you're writing your cover letter.

(Johanna Pålsson)

Yeah, and also the focus is to get to the interview,

so present yourself but not everything, maybe, in the cover letter.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah, that's one of the things, like, I hope your listeners caught

up with the previous episode about the CV, but, yeah, because

what we describe the application papers there was,

it's like a trailer, right? And that's what you want to talk about.

This is the trailer about me. And when you see a movie trailer,

it's not.... or maybe the modern movie trailers give you

the entire plot and everything, but if you look at the movie

trailers how it used to be, like, this is me, this is the person I am

and this is a taste of it, but if you call me to an interview, you'll

get the full image presented to you.

(Johanna Pålsson)

But I get the feeling that there's so much of you to tell. Maybe

I do so much in my spare time that could be of relevance.

So how should I think about the length while writing the cover letter?

(Omid Rahmanian)

So you need to keep it short. That's one of the most difficult

things about it. You need to keep it short.

What I do is... What we usually say here at the Swedish

Public Employment Service is that you should try to keep it

at maximum one A4 page, but what I usually say is I even try to

keep it at a maximum of 500 words.

Now, the key thing here is the write/rewrite thing

we also talked about previously.

You write out everything that you're thinking about.

Just write it all out. If it becomes five pages or seven pages,

it doesn't matter, just write it all out, and then you start to cut.

(Johanna Pålsson)

Kill your darlings.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Kill your darlings, kill your babies. Cut, cut,

cut, cut, cut, until you have a proper length,

you have the proper information and

you are satisfied with the end product that you've produced.

(Johanna Pålsson)

It's going to take so much time to rewrite every single

cover letter. Do you have, like, any tips for how to not rewrite

everything that you do?

(Omid Rahmanian)

Well, it all depends on how much you really want to work at that

employer, so, as an employer, I will see the amount of time

you put in your application. And if you really want to work

at my company, like really, really, then you need to put in

an effort, right?

But if you're not that interested or, like, you are interested but

it's not like the dream job, well, you can kind of create a master

type of cover letter where you've written down your stories

in paragraphs and then you just combine those paragraphs

into a coherent cover letter and send it out.

(Johanna Pålsson)

So a bit of a copy and paste.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah, it's a lot of copy-and-paste jobs with these type of

papers.

(Johanna Pålsson)

And also, which at least I believe, to really adapt every single

letter to that specific employer.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah, I mean, I kind of get where you're coming from,

but, like, if I'm applying for 10 jobs, that is a gargantuan task,

it can be really difficult, so...

(Johanna Pålsson)

It's gonna take a long, long time.

(Omid Rahmanian)

It's gonna take a lot of time. If you do have that time and you

want to make that effort, you should go for it, because it will

make it easier for you to get to an interview, but, like, if you

don't have that time, then if you have 10 employers, figure out

which three that you really want to work with and just try to do

some extra work on that cover letter and on that CV,

and then just a little less time on the seven that you're not

that interested in.

(Johanna Pålsson)

So choose your time and use it wisely.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Time management is so important.

(Johanna Pålsson)

What about when writing the cover letter?

Should it be in Swedish or English?

Will it matter for the employer who reads it?

(Omid Rahmanian)

I think what you need to look is at the ad. I mean, if the ad

is in English, then you should probably write in English.

If the ad is in Swedish, then you should probably write it in

Swedish. And if the ad says specifically you can both choose

Swedish or English as the language, then go ahead and choose

the language that you feel most comfortable with.

(Johanna Pålsson)

Yeah, so you present yourself the best way that you can

with the words that you feel comfortable when using.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Exactly.

(Johanna Pålsson)

All right. Anything else you'd like to mention regarding

the cover letter writing that we have missed so far?

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah, just make sure that you have a nice design to look at.

Be sure to... I mean, press that enter button a couple of times.

I mean, you want to get that 500 words, now that I said it loud.

You're, like, I need to get to 500 words. It sounds good, that.

I want to do that. But, I mean, it needs to look good.

When I grab that cover letter and I'm looking at it from a

distance, I haven't read one piece of word on it yet, my eyes

need to see something that looks soothing and like

this is something that I want to read.

Because the risk here is that they will, if it's just a lot of text

and there's no punctuation, there's no enter button,

there's no paragraphs, I might put that cover letter

straight in the basket.

(Johanna Pålsson)

So think of who are you writing for,

who will read this cover letter.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Exactly.

(Johanna Pålsson)

And why should they read it?

(Omid Rahmanian)

Exactly.

(Johanna Pålsson)

And do you have any advice regarding how to combine the CV

and the cover letter? Like they are two documents for the same

application. Does that matter in any way?

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah, I mean, you can always refer to your CV, because

that's how you also spare some space in your cover letter,

is that you actually refer to your CV, well, as you can see at

previous employer, I applied Python, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So basically you don't need... The paragraph you've written

in your CV about what skills you have,

you don't need to put that paragraph in your cover letter,

but what you do is you show them a problem that you solved.

A great tip here is that this is something that I want to read.

Always have the reader in mind, because if your cover letter, if you

have nice stories, everybody loves a good story.

I mean, the storytellers, they always, they capture the audience.

We all love a good story and there are great stories to tell

from our work experience, but we need to find them, and

the easiest way to find them is to discuss it with people,

to write down as much as you can, and then to create

a nice story of it when you're showing how you solve problems

using your skills, and this will give the reader actually quite

a nice experience and the person might even want to call you

for an interview, because it's so much nicer to actually read

something that makes sense than just a couple of words,

keywords, bunched together.

(Johanna Pålsson)

Sounds like a way of storytelling your competences.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Of course. It's what it is.

(Johanna Pålsson)

All right, so I'll conclude the cover letter writing. Help me

out here if I miss anything.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah.

(Johanna Pålsson)

But do keep it about one A4 page or 500 words,

depending on, so not too long.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Not too long.

(Johanna Pålsson)

So that the reader actually wants to read it.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Exactly.

(Johanna Pålsson)

With a good layout, good font, so it's easy to read. To describe

your competences as to why are you... how do you use

your soft skills, why are you a good fit for the position.

Not to... Well, it's a combination with the CV, but not to rewrite

the CV in the cover letter.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Yeah. Exactly. And when it comes to the fonts, use a sans serif.

They are actually very... Don't use a Times New Roman.

(Johanna Pålsson)

Or Comic Sans, for that matter.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Do the Comic Sans. That's a lot of fun.

(Johanna Pålsson)

(laughs) OK, choose the font that suits you, I'd say.

(Omid Rahmanian)

But not Comic Sans. I was just kidding, right?

(Johanna Pålsson)

OK, anything you'd like to add to the conclusion

or the cover letter?

(Omid Rahmanian)

No, I think you did a perfect job.

(Johanna Pålsson)

All right. Well, thank you, Omid, for coming here and letting us

know how to make the best cover letter.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Thank you, Johanna, for giving me the opportunity to talk

to your audience.

(Johanna Pålsson)

Thank you.

(Omid Rahmanian)

Bye-bye.

(Johanna Pålsson)

You've listened to the New In Sweden podcast, with me,

Johanna Pålsson, and Omid Rahmanian. Today's

sound engineer was Roger Svanell.

Have a good day and be sure to subscribe to our podcast.