You Start Your Cover Letter With "To Whom It May Concern"

Starting your cover letter off with the phrase "To whom it may concern" is very impersonal, and it shows that you didn't do your homework.

It's also an abrupt way to start your cover letter. To top it all off, it's an outdated approach. People used this phrase on cover letters decades ago.

Instead, you want to start out with a phrase like "Dear hiring team," or "Dear hiring manager," or if you can find the name of the person who posted the job, address the cover letter to that person. These phrases help you put a personal touch on your cover letter, which can make you more memorable to recruiters and hiring managers.

You Put A Recap Of Your Resume In Your Cover Letter

Often, job seekers will put all sorts of information about their job history and accomplishments in their cover letters.

The big issue with that? The hiring manager or recruiter is already going to read that information in your resume.

Quite frankly, by recapping your resume in your cover letter, you're wasting a recruiter's or hiring manager's time. You're essentially making them read something twice since they've already had to look at your resume.

This is also risky because a job candidate can put something in their cover letter that makes hiring managers decide that they're not the right fit for the job even before looking at their resume.

Instead of recapping the resume, you want to get the hiring team at "hello" by writing a disruptive cover letter. This disruptive cover letter will help you stand out from other candidates and make a connection to the company you're targeting.

So, How Do You Write A Disruptive Cover Letter?

Writing a disruptive cover letter that recruiters will love isn't as hard as you may think. In fact, it can be pretty fun if you know what to put in it!

Here's how you can write a stand-out cover letter, and why it's so important to make that initial connection with recruiters or hiring managers.

Hundreds of our members at Work It Daily have used a disruptive cover letter to land job interviews. Try writing one during your next job search and see how much of a difference it makes!

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This article was originally published at an earlier date.