
Ask HN: Cover letter techniques for software development positions. - Nemisis7654
I am a senior in college and am applying for many positions that interest me so that I can get a job when I graduate. Now, I know there are plenty of resources online about how to write a cover letter, but I was wondering if the community here at Hacker News could give me insight on things that recruiters/companies look for in a cover letter when they are hiring software developers. Thanks!
======
edw519

       1. Write like you speak, as if told over coffee or beer.
       2. Informal, but not too casual.
       3. Right to the point; the first sentence is your summary.
       4. No bullshit, you'll go straight to the garbage.
       5. If it sounds like bullshit, it is.
       6. Short.  One minute good.  Thirty seconds better.
       7. Tightly targeted!  It's about them as much as you.
       8. Perfict speling and grammer.
       9. Highlight what's important to them.  (Do your homework.)
      10. Enthusiastic without sounding phony.
      11. Have friends read it.  Get feedback.
      12. Does it sound like a good quick description of you?
      13. Have at least one differentiator.  What makes you so special?
      14. Strong finish with a call to action.

~~~
pg
Curiously enough, most of these also work for essays.

~~~
silvajoao
I think it's because all of the points relate to saving time of the reader. If
something can be said in less and clearer words, do so.

People who read a lot eventually hit texts that could have been way shorter
and clearer, and develop a bullshit-detector to avoid such time wasters again.
The reverse of this is that texts with high "signal to noise" are highly
appreciated.

------
eli
Based on my experience, if your cover letter is free from obvious spelling or
grammatical errors and shows you actually read the job description, you're
easily in the top 5% of applicants.

Also, and maybe this is just a pet peeve, but the cover letter should be the
_body_ of your email. Lots of young applicants write this strangely informal
email and attach a completely generic cover letter that doesn't even have my
name in it.

~~~
eru
> Lots of young applicants write this strangely informal email and attach a
> completely generic cover letter that doesn't even have my name in it.

As a Word document?

~~~
eli
Yes.

It's like they think the cover letter is supposed to be a writing sample to
prove they speak English, rather than an introduction.

~~~
loumf
And often they come from a template that sounds nothing like what a real
person would write. I see so many that they all start to look like each other.
A good, personal one really stands out.

------
mikeryan
As someone who has hired many junior devs right out of college a cover letter
gives you the ability to do 2 things.

1\. Tell me the reasons I should hire you that I won't find in your resume.
Those side projects you did that you found really challenging. What subjects
you found really interesting in school that apply to the position. Why you
find the businesses subject fascinating. This is your chance to tell me on
your own terms why you're a good fit.

2\. Why are you applying for _this_ job. What makes you fit this position. I'm
not always looking here for direct domain experience, but something in your
background or interests which fit with the role I'm hiring for.

I had a cover letter template that I would use but would always tailor cover
letters to the specific job and organization I'm applying for. Only maybe 40%
of the content of the letter came from my template.

~~~
figured
"Only maybe 40% of the content of the letter came from my template"

This cannot be stressed enough, tailor each cover letter for the job, do not
copy and paste.

~~~
tjarratt
Good point. The last time I was updating my cover letter, I invented the
following workflow:

-copy/paste in the last email template I had used

-start editing sections that are relevant (intro, relevant experience, why I am interested in this position)

-read the entire email as a whole, look for inconsistencies

-touch up any sections that don't make sense, or are weak

-walk away for an hour, do something else

-come back, read it over again, tidy up any sentences, or add any gems I had come up with.

-optionally have a friend read it.

By the end of the process I usually had changed at least 50% of the format,
and found that my cover letter was rapidly evolving, until I found out what
worked. Sharing cover letters with friends in the industry also helped to root
out some weak sections that I hadn't seen myself.

The main disadvantage of this method is that if you're not careful when
reading, you can miss a reference to company name you had previously applied
to, or include the wrong url. Always, always, always double check any links,
names, or other identifying language.

------
JimmyL
Tailor your style for the size of company you're dealing with (with the
implied "do a bunch of research on the companies you're serious about first").

Applying for a position at a bank/multinational/"big" company with a full HR
department and a contract with Taleo to track job applicants? Be a bit more
formal. Remember that the first person who reads your letter is likely an HR
professional with little connection to the people who will actually make the
hire/no-hire call. They'll be working from a job requirement form, and their
goal is to answer the question "Is there enough of a chance that this
candidate has the right skills that I should forward their file on to the
right hiring manager?" What makes this even more "fun" is that there's a good
chance that they have a very small - if any - technical background, and may
not know (for example) the connection between jQuery, Javascript, and "AJAX".
For companies like this, a little buzzword bingo in there is an important
ingredient that gets your file sent on to the technical guy, who will actually
know what he's looking for.

On the other hand, you've got small/medium-sized companies in which the
engineers you'd end up working with will be much closer to the incoming stream
of applications. These companies may have a designated HR guy, but the role is
often filled by someone else wearing the HR hat for one day a week. Here, the
initial person reading your letter is someone you'll probably end up working
with to some degree or another, which complicates their goal in the first
screening. Now, the question becomes "Does this person sound like the kind of
person I'd like to work with, and if so, does (s)he sound smart/interesting
enough that I should disturb Steve over there to get him to look at this
letter?"

Bottom line: if you're applying to somewhere that has an HR department you
need to get through first, write the letter for them (and assume the actual
hiring managers won't read it). If you're applying to somewhere where the HR
guy is a potential colleague, write the letter as if everyone will read it and
they're judging your fit as a person, not only technically.

------
pedoh
A specific cover letter targeted to the company is much better than a generic
one. You can have common paragraphs in all of your cover letters, but I would
recommend sections that particularly target the needs of the company you're
applying to. For example, if they say in their job description that using
technology FOO is a bonus, mention that project you did with technology FOO
and why you were really excited about it.

Otherwise, you lump yourself in with every other person out there. You need to
make yourself stand out without lying or going over the top. If you can make
it clear that you are really interested in THEM and not just the job, that's a
positive from the employer's perspective.

------
mcknz
People love to read about themselves -- this includes hiring managers at
companies. Find unique and recent news about the company to discuss in your
cover letter, and why it interests you.

Use FB/LinkedIn/Twitter, etc to find out info about people at the company, and
try to send a note to a specific person, rather than just responding to
jobs@bigcorp.com which is often a big black hole.

If you send a personal note to employee Z at the company, make it personal
(don't attach your CV, but include details about employee Z or Z's company you
find interesting) and ask if Z knows anything about position X you want to
apply for -- your chances are much better if you can get your info to a
specific person.

~~~
Nemisis7654
Oh, very nice. I never even thought about using FB/Twitter/LinkedIn. Thanks!

~~~
mcknz
Yeah, it's a gold mine, especially on interviews. If I know who I am being
interviewed by, I can usually find the person's profile/email/blog, and see
what they've written, their areas of expertise, likes/dislikes, etc.

------
twp
Here's some quick advice that has worked very well for me - in reverse order
of importance.

\-------------

3\. KEEP IT SHORT.

Respect that the time of the person reading your letter is valuable. Three
paragraphs maximum. These should be: 1) Where you saw the advert and why you
are interested. 2) Specific details that make you stand out. 3) An invitation
to read your CV and schedule an interview. The goal of the cover letter should
be to get people to read your CV. The goal of your CV should be to get an
interview. The goal of the interview should be to find out if you and the
company are a good fit.

2\. SHOW WHY YOU'RE A GOOD MATCH.

Keep it to three points maximum. Focus on how you match the job description.

1\. JOB APPLICATIONS ARE ABOUT THE COMPANY, NOT ABOUT YOU.

Don't harp on about yourself. Highlight the benefits that you can bring to the
company. If you're starting too many sentences with "I like..." or "I want..."
then you're doing it wrong.

\-------------

Here are some examples from my sent mail folder, all of which got me
interviews - and job offers.

\-------------

EXAMPLE 1: SYSADMIN POSITION IN ACADEMIA

Dear [contact],

Re: [job-title] [link-to-job-advert]

The post above was mentioned to me by your colleague [X] and I am very
interested in it. Please find my CV attached for your consideration.

For this particular post I would like to highlight a couple of points from my
CV that might be of interest to you:

\- experience of system administration in an academic environment

\- very strong Linux and programming skills

\- experience in an international environment

I do hope very much we can meet to discuss your requirements in more detail.

With best regards, [name]

\-------------

EXAMPLE TWO: LINUX MOBILE PHONE SOFTWARE ENGINEER

Dear [contact-name],

Thank you for taking time to speak to me on [date]. The [X] project sounds
very interesting and I would very much like to discuss how I can help. I have
attached my CV in French and also a direct English translation.

I would like to highlight two points that I believe are particularly relevant
to [company-name]:

\- I have previous experience of embedded systems programming: during my year
out I developed the software for a precision testing machine (20 000 lines of
C in 6 months). I worked closely with a team of electronic and mechanical
engineers during the project, which was completed on time and on budget.

\- I am a developer for [Y] Linux, a distribution which is being increasing
used for embedded systems. If you are considering using Linux either in your
phones or in-house I can offer specific expertise.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need further information, and I
look forward to discussing your requirements in more detail in the near
future.

Yours sincerely, [name]

\-------------

EXAMPLE 3: BACK-END DEVELOPER FOR INTERNET START-UP

Dear [company-name],

I'm very interested in the Back-end Developer job at [company-name] advertised
on [job-site-name] and on your website.

In particular, I can offer [company-name]:

\- very experienced developer, including many years of PHP, JavaScript and
MySQL experience

\- expert in Linux, including Apache and system administration

\- experience of building successful communities - I've been instrumental in
evolving [sports-website] into the most popular website for [participants] in
the world with over [X] thousand members

Please find my CV attached for your consideration. You can find code from my
personal projects, many including PHP, AJAX, XML and geographical services,
at: [link-to-my-github-page]

I do hope that we meet to discuss your requirements in more detail.

Yours faithfully,

~~~
frossie
This is exactly right.

The job ad is about the company. Your resume is about you. The cover letter is
supposed to highlight how one matches the other. These examples are fabulous.

A generic cover letter is worse than useless.

------
Dylanlacey
Be You Be You Be You Be You BE YOU.

These people will spend most of your waking life with you. If they don't want
_YOU_ , the real person, you don't want _THEM_ , the uptight company.

The cover letter is obligatory, not because they want it, but because YOU need
it to do anything other then be a set of keywords.

Talk about why you're a good fit for the role they're asking. Look at their
company site and see what culture they claim to have, and write to it. Write
how it will make you productive and encourage you to bring value.

Best of luck. If you become a startup guru, hire me, I'm hard working and a
good lateral thinker...

~~~
Nemisis7654
Haha, I'll keep that in mind.

Thanks for the advice. It makes a lot of sense.

~~~
Dylanlacey
No worries, let me know when you're successful ^_^

------
SamReidHughes
Whatever you do, don't wait until your inhibitions are down before sending the
cover letter and resume. If you can't help but hem and haw over the cover
letter, you're not going to submit anything until late in the day. Then it
will be near bedtime, and you'll be more likely to put stupid obnoxious-
sounding things in the cover letter. If you have this problem, it might help
to make a game out of writing a simple, mediocre, polite cover letter, instead
of trying to make a good cover letter. My response rate went from 0% to 100%
when I did this. If you're not a naturally obnoxious person, maybe you won't
have this problem.

------
bobabooey
My wife, who hires people, complains about this point all the time. Unless
you've been a serial entrepreneur since age 10, keep your resume to one page.
You're too young to have a resume longer than a page.

~~~
Nemisis7654
Thanks for the advice. Luckily, mine is only one page.

~~~
ErrantX
You probably know this already.. but #1 advice for someone your age, I find,
is: _don't list "reading" or "swimming" (etc) as an interest to fill space_ :)

more: <http://www.errant.me.uk/blog/2010/05/how-to-write-a-good-cv/>

------
raffi
Writing a good cover letter is like writing a good sales letter. Show the
prospect that you know who they are, you have looked at the situation (you
absolutely must convince them of this), and that you have the solution.

I suggest reading about Leonardo da Vinci's resume for a good example:
[http://www.theladders.com/career-newsletters/leonardo-da-
vin...](http://www.theladders.com/career-newsletters/leonardo-da-vinci-resume)

Something else to keep in mind, the interview process is not always about
winning/losing--it's about finding the best candidate. You might be extremely
qualified for a position but not come across as what the company is looking
for. For example, the last time I was interviewing people, I was looking for
someone who would follow my instructions. My top five applicants were
extremely qualified (overqualified even). I went, not with the most
overqualified candidate, but rather the one who I knew I could mold into what
I needed.

Remember, you're involved in a transaction. You're selling your time. Make
sure you know what you want to sell and realize that not everyone is buying
exactly that.

~~~
mistermann
> the interview process is not always about winning/losing--it's about finding
> the best candidate.

Exactly, and this has many variations. On one of my recent interviews for a
contract position, about 3/4 of the way through when we were discussing
technical details in more depth, I realized I didn't have the proper
background for the project, so I said that I would recommend they contact the
headhunter to see if they had someone with more experience in this particular
technology. They asked me if I was interested in learning it (they seemed to
be looking for a reason to hire me), and I said sure, I'd love to, but in my
opinion it was in their best interests to hire someone that already knew the
technology well.

If I wanted to I could have taken the job, learned a new technology, and got
overpaid for it. But I believe being brutally honest will pay off in the long
run - some people will remember you some day, and you will reap the benefits.

------
doyoulikeworms
I recently went through the song and dance of job searching, and I'll soon be
happily employed with a great company in SF. My resume isn't spectacular, but
it's good (decent GPA at a good school). To my surprise, some amazing
companies granted me interviews, and I believe it had a lot to do with my
cover letters (like I said, not a spectacular resume).

Understand that my opinion is that of a junior engineer (1 year of
experience).

A strong cover letter ought to be engaging, to the point, clear, and genuine.
My general strategy leveraged casual language, an honest portrayal of myself
and my desires, and dollop of self-deprecating humor. I got some friends to
review my cover letters, and made sure that they laughed. I figured, if the
recruiter enjoys my cover letter, my application won't get dumped immediately.

YMMV. This might be awful advice, but it worked for me. Good luck!

------
iuguy
Recruiters and companies are looking for different things. The best thing that
you can do when applying direct to a company, is to show what you know, show
your enthusiasm (perhaps through one or two choice free software projects, but
not so many that you'd look overstretched) and what you learned at college.

For recruiters, you need to look at what the job description is after and try
to match your CV as closely to it as reasonable without looking like you're
lying (btw don't lie, you will get caught out). Stress your strengths where
they're relevant to the role, but your cover letter is likely to be ignored by
a recruiter, or rather not entered into the database so I'd keep it short and
sweet and focus on matching acronyms and technologies to your experience in
your CV.

~~~
cdr
Better yet, avoid recruiters completely - especially right out of college.

------
chrisaycock
Anyone who sends me a cover letter or resume typeset with LaTeX moves to the
head of the line.

------
sahillavingia
I like to think that the things that will get me hired at a company are the
pet projects that I choose to work on (rather than a degree, or "notable"
classes I've taken).

What's worked best for me is just emailing startups I genuinely want to work
for with a one-sentence description of me, and a question (wanna meet up? is a
summer internship a possibility?). I also include a sentence describing the
coolest thing I've worked on (inspired by the SuS application).

It's worked so far (and I'm only a freshman, I'm sure you have way more to
talk about!).

------
bherms
It depends on the company but here's a few things I've come across that have
paid off. (several of these have been said):

Be genuine. Don't bullshit. Tell them why you want to work for THEIR company.
Discuss why you'll benefit them or what you'll bring to the table. Mention
your skills. Be conversational and convey a little personality. If the company
is a laid-back startup type, don't be afraid to show your quirky side. Show
enthusiasm. Tell them why you're different.

------
8ren
Adopted from _What Color is Your Parachute_ 's "real questions behind every
interviewer". A cover letter with one paragraph per point has got me an
interview every time (before becoming independent of work.)

    
    
      1. why them?
      2. are you competent?
      3. are you special?
      4. will you fit in?
      5. can they afford you?    // I leave this one out for a cover letter :-)
    

It's not a bad template for marketing anything.

------
perplexes
Make it short, sweet, and simple.

Show me you took 10 minutes seeing who are are and what we're about, and that
you didn't just spam your cover letter and resume to every job posting you
could find.

Talk to me like I'm a human and not some robot checking our mail box, checking
off that you've done 6 years of whatever-it-is.

Show me you have passion and you give a damn, and that you're not afraid of
hard work, but still carry a sense of humor about you.

------
eru
It easier to write a good cover letter, if you have a good reason to write it,
or for the recipient to read it.

To give a boring example: If you want a software development position,
experience with software development is a plus. If you can tell in your cover
letter (and resume) that you have already worked on, say, an open source
project, they are more likely to be interested in you.

~~~
Nemisis7654
Thanks. That is why I am really trying to find the time from school to
contribute to an Open Source project. I would love to put something like that
on my resume.

~~~
eru
Just choose any project you like, and ask for pointers. There's usually a list
with easy things to get started. Like fixing typos, easy bugs, removing
warnings. Even just doing trivial things can count as `contributed to an open
source project', and we be more than you (and most other people) did so far.
Also it will ease you into doing more interesting things later on.

------
endtime
Honestly, I've never written nor received a cover letter. Are you sure it's
necessary?

~~~
ja27
I wrote a few early in my career, but not since then. I don't think I've ever
seen one for any candidates I've interviewed - just resumes.

------
ashitvora
* Be Honest. Show what you are. * Provide links to your work which you think are Best. * Don't write crap, they can easily make it out. They were also student once. * Don't make grammatical mistakes. * Keep it short and to the point.

------
neovive
View your cover letter as another opportunity to sell yourself and get a call
back. A resume has many details, but lacks personality. The cover letter is
your chance to differentiate yourself from other candidates.

------
woan
Express passion for what the company does and how they do it within the
context of the position being applied for.

Think of it combined with your resume as a marketing plan. Why you as opposed
to someone else and address anything that stick out better or worse in your
resume.

------
bhiggins
These days, to me "cover letter" means what's in the body of the email, and
the resume is attached, ideally as a PDF. I prefer "cover letters" that are
short (one paragraph) and don't read like it was copy-pasted. Honestly, I've
grown tired of reading that a person is a "hard worker" or a "great problem
solver", stuff like that... just tell me why you find the company interesting
enough to ask for a job there, to put 40+ hours per week of your life into
indefinitely. Perhaps this doesn't work for emails that are going to an HR
person or destined for a database but I know this is what I look for
personally, as a software engineer interested in hiring quality software
engineers.

Also, the resume should be concrete about experience. I don't like reading
about what your _team_ did, instead talk about what _you_ did. I don't like
reading that a project that "made stuff better", I want to know by how much
exactly. I don't like reading projects that sound like they were accomplished
with magic fairy dust, I like to see specific tools, techniques, programming
languages, and so on. My resume in fact used to be more generic, but the
feedback I got on it from my friends made it a lot better (they were also
former coworkers so they knew some of the stuff and even remembered some
projects I'd worked on that I had forgotten). I said what I did, what tools I
used, what goals I hit personally.

~~~
Nemisis7654
So, would you suggest I convert my resume to PDF? I have always sent it as a
word doc...

~~~
bendmorris
It completely depends on who you're sending it to whether Word is an
acceptable format, but PDFs are pretty much universally okay. If your Word doc
is forwarded to someone who uses OpenOffice, your formatting may get all
messed up. They might not have the right fonts, etc. PDFs are the safest
choice.

