How To Write A Cover Letter When You Have No Experience https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2015/01/21/how-to-write-a-co...

/ Entrepreneurs

JAN 21, 2015 @ 08:00 AM

How To Write A Cover Letter When You Have No

Experience

Susan Adams, FORBES STAFF

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My son, a freshman at UCLA, recently
asked me how to write a cover letter.
Hes planning to major in
communications, and an upper
classman whos already in the major
(you have to apply), forwarded him a
listing for an internship at a boutique
Los Angeles public relations firm whose
client list includes major brands like
Dove and Banana Republic.

Ive been covering careers for four

years now and one of my
most-trafficked stories, with more than
1.7 million page-views, is about
precisely that topic. (You can read it
here.) But its geared toward

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mid-career professionals, not kids

starting out, whose only work
experience, like my sons, may be
volunteering at a non-profit bike shop,
interning on a political campaign and
working as a tennis coach for eight-
year-olds. Oh, and feeding the cats for
an overly generous neighbor who paid
him $20 a day. How would any of this
translate into a convincing cover letter
for a PR internship?

I realized it was time to write another

cover letter story, this one geared to
kids who have no fancy internships or
summer jobs on their razor-thin
rsums. (I wrote a story about early-
career rsums here.)

For advice I turned to Lauren Berger,

who runs a website called
Internqueen.com and has written two
books about getting started in a career,
All Work No Pay: Finding an
Internship, Building Your Resume,
Making Connections, and Gaining Job
Experience and Welcome to the Real
World: Finding Your Place, Perfecting
Your Work, and Turning Your Job into
Your Dream Career. A story I wrote
using Bergers wisdom about how to
land internships was also one of my
most-viewed pieces. You can read it
here. Plus I talked to four college
placement officers and four career
coaches, including Jill Tipograph, who
specializes in helping young people.

Here is their combined wisdom:

1. The first paragraph should say

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who you are, where you go to

school, what the job is that youre
applying for and how you came to
apply. It helps a lot if you can
include a name of someone with a
personal connection. You should
also clarify where youre located
geographically. If the internship is in a
city other than where you live or go to
school, say you are planning to be there
during the dates of the job. Dont say
you could be there. If the student
shows hesitation, that translates to
ambivalence about whether they want
the job, says Berger.

Say where you learned about the job.

Example: My name is Susan and Im a
freshman at UCLA, planning to major
in communications. An upper classman
from the department forwarded your
flyer about the summer internship at
Frankenheimer Public Relations in
New York City. Im very interested in
the internship, which sounds like it
would be my ideal job. Im a New York
native and plan to be in the city from
June 1 through early September.
Better yet: Lucy McGillicutty, who
interned at Frankenheimeir Public
Relations last summer, suggested I
apply for your internship program. All
job seekers, even college freshmen,
should have a LinkedIn profile, which
can be a great place to discover whether
you know someone connected to the
company where you want to work.

Win At Work: An eBook From

Forbes

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Land a great job, handle your boss and get

ahead today.

2. The second paragraph has to

connect the dots between you and
the employer. Before you write it,
print out the job posting and go
through it with a highlighter. Note the
buzzwords and incorporate them into
this part of the letter. Also spend at
least an hour on the company site
reading and thinking, including
clicking through every link. If the firm
has a blog, read at least a dozen entries.
Check out the firms presence on social
media and do a wide-ranging Google
search. Describe how your experiences
meet the challenges presented in the
job description. If youre a college
freshman, its fine to evoke experience
you gained in high school. Example: I
see youre looking for a self-starter with
social media skills. I ran a Facebook
page that successfully recruited
musicians for a student-produced
musical. I conducted auditions,
organized rehearsals and arranged the
score. Or: I see youre looking for
someone who has the ability to
multitask while staying organized and
being efficient. When I worked at
Franks Bicycles I juggled a demanding
backlog of deadline-sensitive repairs
with the responsibility of staffing the
counter and waiting on customers.

3. In the third paragraph, further

describe your personal traits and
how they make you a great
candidate for the job. Youre

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cooperative, work well with others, you

have a great work ethic. Again, give
short but specific examples of those
skills. Katharine Brooks, executive
director of the campus career
placement office at Wake Forest
University in Winston-Salem, NC, and
author of You Majored in What?:
Mapping Your Path from Chaos to
Career, says you should try to tell one-
or two-line stories about yourself that
show how your skills match the job and
expand upon the job descriptions in
your rsums. Example: I worked on a
team of interns for the successful
political campaign of city
councilwoman Mary Smith where we
organized events and then staffed
them, sometimes until 1 A.M. Or:
When I was working at Franks
Bicycles, I helped a client who was
looking for a Dahon folding bike, which
the store didnt stock. Within an hour I
found a distributor willing to make a
one-time delivery of the bike the
customer wanted.

4. To wrap up, say when youll get

in touch. Ill try you by phone next
Tuesday at 2:00 and hope we can
connect.

5. In most cases, send the letter as

an attachment and format it like
an old-fashioned business letter
with your address at the top, then
the date and then the address of
the recipient. Most coaches will
advise this but I would say formatting
is fluid. Ive written cover letters in the
body of an email with the rsum as an

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attachment. Or you can send the letter

as an attachment and just start with a
date and a salutation. Your sign-off can
be formal, like Sincerely, or
something warmer, like All the best.
When in doubt, make the salutation
formal: Dear Ms. Adams or To
whom it may concern.

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