How do you prepare your cover letter?

DissonantData

I'm getting the idea that if I want to get a job more easily I need a cover letter. How do you go about preparing one? How should it be different from your resume? I'm curious to know how people on here prepare their cover letters.

tier~

I'm a firm believer that the cover letter should actually address the issues of the place you're applying to and how your skills will help the place to succeed. A great article I've bookmarked since I saw it over a year ago on this is here: Forget the Cover Letter: Write a Pain Letter, Instead

I just can't stand the formulaic standard cover letter of "I'd like to be considered for such and such position at XYZ company... blah blah I sound like a robot". Seems to be the recommended thing everywhere you look though. I'm looking forward to everyone's opinion on this.

JaneDoe

Here are directions on how to prepare a cover letter. Cover letters are really important when you don't have a lot of formal experience. Use your cover letter to talk about how you love working with computers, your people skills, and how patient you are with people who know less than you about computers. Talk about how you fixed grandmas computer, and calmed her down while she was freaking about about it being "broken". Talk about how good you are at explaining technical concepts to non-technical people, etc.

If you find a job that seems like it's just perfect for you, write a cover letter about how much you want you want to work there, and why you think you're such a good fit. If something doesn't look like the perfect job, still modify your base cover letter to tell the company why you wan to work for them specifically. A lot of companies that aren't well know are understanding if your cover letter isn't swooning over them (they prefer you take more of a genuine tone), but they expect you to show what can contribute the company.

Have as many people review your cover letter(s) as possible to ensure there are no errors in it.

Akaricloud

A resume only really highlights your achievements and experience where a cover letter provides you a chance to show who you are, what your aspirations are and how the position you're applying to is a good fit outside of your resume experience.

An effective cover letter is unique for each place applied, highlights specific ways that you're someone the team/company would work well with and shows a lot more of your personality.