Cover letters: when they matter and how to write one

Not every job asks for a cover letter, and not every recruiter reads one. Still, when the field is there, it’s one of the few places where you can explain in your own words why the role makes sense for you. Your resume shows what you’ve done. The letter connects it to what the company needs.

When a letter matters most

• When the posting explicitly asks for one.
• When you’re changing fields and your resume alone doesn’t explain the move.
• When something needs context: a career gap, a relocation, experience that doesn’t look obviously relevant.
• When the company is small and the reader is the person you’d actually work with.

If the field is optional and the job looks like dozens of others you’re applying to, a short, well-made letter still beats a long, generic one. A generic letter can do more harm than good.

A structure that works

Aim for three or four short paragraphs that fit on one screen.

1. A direct opening

Say which role you want and why it caught your attention. Skip "To whom it may concern, I am writing to express my interest". Try something like: "I’m applying for the data analyst role because working with logistics data is exactly what I do today."

2. Your strongest evidence

Pick one or two experiences that answer the role’s main requirement. Give the context, what you did and the result. Don’t walk through your resume line by line: go deeper on something it only mentions.

3. Why this company

Show that you’ve read about the company, not just the job ad. Its product, its customers, a challenge it talks about publicly. One specific sentence is worth more than a paragraph of compliments.

4. A short close

Thank them, say you’d be glad to talk, and stop. There’s no need to summarize everything again.

What to leave out

• Lines that could apply to any company, such as "I am a proactive, results-driven team player".
• Apologies for what’s missing from your profile. If there’s a requirement you don’t meet, show how you make up for it without selling yourself short.
• Salary expectations, unless the posting asks for them in the letter.
• Personal details that have nothing to do with the job.

Tailoring without starting from scratch

Keep a base template with your opening, two or three experience stories and your close. For each job, swap in:

• The job title and company name, checked twice.
• The story that best answers that role’s main requirement.
• The sentence about the company, which should always be new.

Before sending, read it out loud. If any line sounds like ad copy, rewrite it until it sounds like you talking.

What about writing it with AI?

AI tools are useful for getting past a blank page and for trimming a long draft. The catch is reviewing everything: remove claims that aren’t true, replace generic lines with your own facts, and double-check names. In G3 Apply, the cover letter generator among the AI tools writes a letter from your resume and the job description, and you copy or download the text to review and adjust it. In the copilot, you choose between a letter generated for each job or one of your own, and in review mode you open the letter before it’s submitted.

A cover letter doesn’t need to be brilliant. It needs to be specific, true and easy to read. That alone puts it ahead of most generic letters.