Lesson 18 — Activity 4: Writing a Cover Letter



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After you have prepared a suitable résumé, you are almost ready to go out and market yourself to employers everywhere. However, an employer may wonder why your résumé is sitting on the desk if a cover letter is not attached.

It is great if you can meet an employer in person with your résumé or application form in hand, but many times that is not possible or practical. That is why cover letters are necessary. A cover letter is a way of introducing yourself and highlighting the items on a résumé that are real strengths and relevant to a particular job. It also lets the employer know that he or she should read your résumé and seriously consider hiring you for the job!


Because a cover letter is a type of business letter, let’s look at those first. As you may remember from English 10-4, a business letter is much more formal than a letter you might write to a friend or relative. Business letters are used for several reasons. They include:

  • thank you letters
  • letters of complaint
  • letters of request
  • letters of invitation
  • letters of congratulation

Regardless of the purpose, business letters have a definite formal language.

Click here to review the parts of a business letter.

Appropriate Tone for a Business Letter

Tone is very important in communication. The tone in your words can suggest if you are well mannered or disrespectful. When you are writing formal letters, you need to be sure that the tone of the letter suits the purpose you are hoping to achieve. You want to be sure that the reader will not be offended by the letter or dismiss you as unimportant, so you need to choose your words carefully.

One way that you can be sure of the tone of a letter is to use proper English, avoiding slang and abbreviations. Using text messaging or other “electronic” language such as “U R” for “you are” is not appropriate in a business letter.

Another way to be sure the tone of a letter is polite is to learn the correct name and title of the person to whom you are writing. You may need to phone the business and ask for this information, or you may be able to find this information on a website, on a business card, or on letterhead from the business.

An appropriate closing is another way that you can achieve a polite tone in a letter. Common ways to end a business letter include the following expressions:

  • Sincerely,
  • Yours truly,
  • Respectfully,
  • Cordially,


Writing a Cover Letter

The cover letter follows the same format as the business letter. The only element that changes is that the content is made more specific to encourage the employer to read your résumé. 

A typical cover letter would look like this:



Digging Deeper!

Click on the Play button below to watch a video on how to write a cover letter.




Click on the Play button below to watch a video on the Top 5 Cover Letter Tips!