A Student's Guide to Resume Writing
Chapter 3: Writing the Masterful Cover Letter
In today's world, it is not enough to write an ordinary
cover letter. An ordinary cover letter crumples in the heat of the reader's
gaze and is subsequently crumpled in his hand. An ordinary cover letter
diminishes both author and reader. It is a smutty, dirty, common thing.
You will not write an ordinary cover letter. You
are a student of the University of Better Things. You will write a
MASTERFUL cover letter. A MASTERFUL cover letter
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never apologizes
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never prevaricates
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never deviates
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never fails
"A masterful cover letter
arcs toward its target like an arrow and pierces that target when it reaches
him and stays there. The author is the bow that sends the MASTERFUL cover
letter toward its target, which is the potential employer. That's what
I'm saying here. You send him the cover letter, he reads it, and it stays
in his mind, much as an arrow would stay in his head, although without
killing him. It's a metaphor and you have to take such things with a grain
of salt.
- Dean of Better Things, Opening
Speech, Cover Letter Symposium of 1946.