What are successful job seekers doing instead? They’re relying on referrals, for the most part, which can make it less necessary use a cover letter as an introduction. Jobvite reports: “Almost 35 percent of job seekers applied to their current or most recent position via referral — especially millennials. Luckily, Jobvite data shows that referred applicants are five times more likely than average to be hired, and 15 times more likely to be hired than applicants from a job board.”
They’re also using creative strategies to stand out in a crowded field. Some send hiring managers unexpected, distinctive packages that help brand themselves. After all, why tell your potential boss you’d be a great fit for the position if you could show them instead?
“Show, don’t tell” seems to be the philosophy of one candidate who interviewed recently with digital strategist Jason Dominy. She followed up by, as he describes in a post on LinkedIn, sending a well-decorated bouquet of “six local craft beers,” accompanied by “notes on each one connecting them to her own traits and skills.”
Dominy called her efforts “amazing.” She got the job.
If you still feel most comfortable submitting a thorough, traditional application, consider the counsel of Slate’s editor-in-chief Julia Turner, who tells listeners in a recent podcast segment that the best cover letters make an argument.
“I love cover letters as a way to assess job applicants,” she says, but they shouldn’t serve as “a list of things you’ve done,” followed by blandishments about the position or as “writing exercises” in which you praise yourself.
Instead, “an effective cover letter should be an argument for how the set of experiences you’ve had up to this point in your career make you the perfect candidate for the job,” Turner says. “It should reveal your understanding of the place you’re trying to work at and a set of beliefs about how the things you’re good at would help that place achieve its goals.”
Methodology:
To compile this report, Zogby Analytics, on behalf of Jobvite, conducted a nationwide online survey of 2,287 adults (aged 18+), of whom 1,531 were participants in the U.S. labor force, in March of 2017. Full details about methodology can be found here.
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