Work Experience cover letter
Now you may well think that a cover letter asking for work experience is exactly the same as a letter you’d send asking for a standard job … and while the two letters are very similar, there is one key difference that I’m going to assume while writing this article.
Generally speaking, people will ask for work experience when they’re trying to break into a particular industry which therefore means that you have very little in the way of direct, relevant experience to talk about either in the letter or in their enclosed CV.
If this doesn’t apply to you, then you’re probably going to get a lot more value out of reading our article on how to write a CV cover letter.
However, if you don’t have any experience for a particular role, then hopefully the following ideas will help to secure you a short work placement to help you gain the experience that you need.
Research the company
Research is always important, but it’s even more crucial when you haven’t got any experience to back you up. That’s because all you can sell a potential employer on is yourself and your desire to work for them.
Research is a great way of doing this, so make sure you find out the following information:
Company Details
How long has the company been around? What is it exactly that they do and why have they been as successful as they have?
What you’re looking to do here is build up a picture of how the company operates, they way that they like doing business and therefore the sort of people that they prefer to employ.
Make a note of key details such as when they were founded, who their main clients are and how many people they employ at the current time. For larger companies, you might want to also look into whether they have offices overseas, whether they’ve floated on the stock exchange and how much their stock is currently worth.
Who’s responsible for recruitment?
Your cover letter needs to strike up an instant rapport with the person who’s reading it, so rather than just sending a generic letter ‘To Whom it May Concern’ do a bit more digging and see if you can find the name of the actual person who’ll end up deciding whether you get your work experience placement or not.
You may well find this on the company’s website or from friends you have who are working in the industry at the moment. If that doesn’t work, then do a search on Google for any relevant information and if all else fails, then pick up the telephone and call the company themselves.
Most companies these days have an HR department, in which case you’ll be able to find the information you need with just a couple of quick questions.
Layout your letter correctly
This section probably only applies if you’re planning on sending your letter through the post system. If you’ve been lucky enough to find a suitable email address to use, then you skip to the next section where we’ll talk about the main body of your letter.
However, those of you who will be printing out your letter onto a piece of paper need to follow certain ground rules.
Your address:
The first thing that needs to go on your letter is a contact address. This will be placed on the left hand side of the page and does not need to include your name, although a postcode/zip code should be used where possible.
The Date:
Three of four lines further down the page, you need to insert the date on which you are writing the letter. This should not be abbreviated.
e.g. 24th October 1978
Name of contact
Press the return key three of four more times and then start your letter by addressing the name of the person reading the letter followed by a comma. This should be the name that you obtained from your research above.
e.g. Dear Mr Harrison,
Subject Header (optional)
There has been a recent trend for inserting a subject on the line immediately below the name of your contact. This isn’t a requirement at all, but may well be suitable in this case as what you’re requesting is slightly different from a normal employment opportunity.
If you want to include a subject, make sure it is brief, centred and written in bold font.
eg: Work Experience Placement, July 2011
The Main Content
What follows needs to be seen as your pitch for a work experience placement. The exact wording will obviously change depending on the industry you’re looking to work in but it needs to be concise, professional and above all passionate.
Try and structure your letter in the following way:
First Paragraph
Just like any good book, your first line needs to hook the reader and encourage them to reach the end of the letter.
Be confident and assertive from the beginning and let them know exactly why you hold the company in such high esteem and why you would love to work for them on a temporary basis.
The subsequent paragraph(s)
The aim of any cover letter is to be short and succinct. However, we would recommend that you take two paragraphs to convey your knowledge and passion for the company
Take the knowledge that you gained about the company from your research stage and match if up with your own interests and passions.
The aim here is to prove that you’re interested enough in the company to have found out precise details about them while also proving that you have a passion for the industry that they work in.
Final Paragraph
Having explained who are you, what you want and why you want it, now’s the time to make sure that your contact does something.
Your final paragraph needs to a positive statement about the person you are and the work that you can do. But it also needs you to encourage the reader to take action.
Do this by providing an email address of a phone number and asking them to get in touch with you to discuss any vacancies they have. Equally be sure to stress that you’re available immediately and would relish the opportunity to work for such a respected brand.
Finally, thank your reader for taking the time out to read what you have to say.
Sign Off
Your letter should end with a formal goodbye. Depending on how you started your letter, use the following phrases:
- If you managed to do your research successfully, you’ll have addressed your letter to a particular person, in which case you can sign off with ‘Yours sincerely’
- For more generic openings (such as ‘To Whom it may Concern’), you’ll need to use ‘Yours faithfully’
After that, you’ll need to leave a space big enough for you to sign your name in ink and then insert your name in parenthesis:
e.g. (Frank Adams)
Check for corrections
Most people skim through this part, but it’s one of the most important areas of the cover letter writing process.
What you’ve done so far should only be seen as your first draft – from here, you need to read and re-read your letter at least half a dozen times to fine tune it.
Some things to look out for include:
- Your letter should consist of four professional looking, concise paragraphs. In total, your content (including date and signature) should take up approximately three quarters of a side of A4.
If you’ve gone over a page, then your letter is far too long and needs to be heavily edited. Remember your CV is there to give more background about you – the cover letter is there simply to prove how passionate you are about working for your chosen company.
- Run your entire letter through a spell checker such as Microsoft Word – and make sure that similar sounding words (such as ‘there’ and ‘their) are spelt correctly.
- Get rid of any contractions that you may have used. This means that “You’re” needs to become “You are” and “I’m” should be replaced with “I am”
- Similarly any slang or colloquial expressions should be removed. You need to come across as a trusted and professional member of society, and unfortunately slang doesn’t do that.
- Replace any numbers (with the exception of dates and cash amounts) that you might have used with words. Therefore “I worked there for 8 weeks” becomes “I worked there for eight weeks”
- Make sure that you come across as positive, keen and eager to learn. As we mentioned at the top of this article, you haven’t got any experience as such to fall back on.
All you can do is convince any potential employer that you’re really keen to come and work there.
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