How to Write a Cover Letter for a Job, in Four Paragraphs

A cover letter is short enough that it should take half an hour and long enough that most people put it off for three days. The delay is nearly always about the opening line, and the opening line is nearly always the wrong place to start.

Start with the advert instead.

Step one: find the job’s real requirement

Read the advert twice. Ignore the boilerplate at the top and the benefits at the bottom. Somewhere in the middle there is a reason this role exists right now: a team that has grown, a service that is launching, a backlog, a regulation, a person who left.

Sometimes it is stated plainly — “following a period of rapid growth”, “to support the new CQC framework”, “covering a twelve-month maternity leave”. Sometimes you infer it from what the advert keeps returning to. Either way, that is the subject of your letter. Everything else is structure.

Step two: find your best single piece of evidence

One story, not five. The strongest letters make one argument thoroughly rather than four arguments briefly.

Look for something that is on your resume as a line and deserves a paragraph — a project, a fix, a period where you did more than the title suggests. The letter is where you get to say what actually happened.

The four paragraphs

1. Why this job, in two or three sentences

Name the role and where you saw it, then say something true and specific about why it interests you. Specific means a detail only someone who looked would know.

I am applying for the Operations Manager role at Northgate, advertised on your site. The part that interests me is the depot consolidation you announced in March: I spent two years on the other side of exactly that at Marden, and it is the work I have found most worth doing.

What to avoid: “I am writing to express my keen interest in…”, and any sentence about your passion for the industry. How to start a cover letter has more openings that work.

2. The evidence, in five or six sentences

The situation, what you did, what happened. Concrete, with a number if you have one, and in ordinary language.

At Marden I took over two depots that were being merged into one. The plan on paper assumed the two teams used the same pick process; they did not, and the first week produced a 40 per cent rise in mispicks. I paused the merge, spent a fortnight mapping both processes with the shift leads, and restarted with one agreed method and a two-week overlap. Mispicks were back to baseline within a month and below it within three. The saving held at about £310,000 a year.

This is the paragraph that earns the interview. It shows judgement, not just experience — and judgement is the thing a resume genuinely cannot demonstrate.

3. Anything that needs accounting for, in one or two sentences

Skip this paragraph if nothing applies. If something does — a gap, a change of field, a relocation, a step down in title, a short tenure — name it plainly and move on. Two sentences, no apology, no long explanation.

I took eighteen months out from 2023 for caring responsibilities and returned to full-time work last March. I am based in Manchester and would relocate for this role; I have family in Leeds and know the area well.

A named fact is a closed subject. An unexplained gap is an open question, and readers answer open questions pessimistically.

4. The close, in two sentences

Say what you would like to happen. No flourish, no restating of the whole letter.

I would welcome the chance to talk about the consolidation and what you are finding difficult about it. I am available for a call most afternoons and can start with four weeks’ notice.

Then Yours sincerely if you have named a person, Yours faithfully if you addressed it to a title, and your name.

Format and address

• Header: the same one as your resume — name, email, phone, city — so the pair matches.
• Date, then the employer’s name and address if you have it. In an email, skip both.
• Salutation: Dear Ms Okafor if you know who. Dear Hiring Manager if you do not. Never To Whom It May Concern, and never Dear Sir/Madam in 2026.
• Length: 250 to 400 words. Half a page, three-quarters at the very most.
• Typeface: whatever your resume uses, at the same size.
• File: DOCX or PDF to match the resume, named Firstname-Lastname-Cover-Letter.pdf.

To find a name, look at the advert, the company’s team page, and the profile of whoever posted the job. If fifteen minutes does not produce one, Dear Hiring Manager is perfectly acceptable and nobody has ever been rejected for it.

Six lines to delete on sight

1. “I am writing to express my interest in the above-mentioned position.”
2. “As you can see from my attached CV…”
3. “I am a hard-working team player with excellent communication skills.”
4. “I believe I would be a great fit for your company.” (Why?)
5. “Your company’s reputation for excellence…”
6. “Thank you for taking the time to consider my application.” (Fine in an email; a waste of a line in a letter.)

Before you send it

Check the employer’s name is right — the single most common and most fatal error. Check you have not left a job title from the last application in. Read it aloud. Then cut the weakest paragraph; there is almost always one.

Every template here includes a cover letter document set in the same type as the resume, with the four-paragraph structure already laid out and prompts for what belongs in each. See what is included, or find your job title among 498 — project manager, medical assistant, sales representative and the rest.

Common questions

How long should a cover letter be?

250 to 400 words, on half a page. Anything past three-quarters of a page is being skimmed rather than read. More on length.

What do I write if I cannot find the hiring manager’s name?

“Dear Hiring Manager”. It is neutral and current. Avoid “To Whom It May Concern” and “Dear Sir/Madam”, both of which read as dated.

Should I explain a career gap in the cover letter?

Yes, in one or two plain sentences. Naming it closes the question. Leaving it unmentioned invites the reader to guess, and guesses are rarely generous.

Should the cover letter go in the email body or as an attachment?

Both, when you are applying by email. Put a shortened version in the body and attach the full document, because many readers never open attachments before deciding.

Is it acceptable to use AI to write a cover letter?

To tidy your own draft, yes. To produce it from the advert alone, no — the result is fluent, generic and recognisable, and it cannot contain the one thing that makes a letter work: what actually happened to you.

• Filed under
• Cover letters
• Examples
• Job applications