Writing Cover Letters for Recruiters

Depending on how you view writing cover letters, this next piece of information may be comforting or disappointing. Recruiters don’t look at your cover letter first, and they’ll only read the letter if they like what they read on your resume. Most recruiters simply don’t have the time to read cover letters, and they can get all the information they need about your professional skills and experience from your resume. If you’re jumping up and down and cheering at this news, hold up a minute—you still have to write that cover letter!

However, the cover letter you send to a recruiter is quite different from the one you’d send to an employer. There are certain crucial pieces of information that a recruiter wants to see in a cover letter, most of which you wouldn’t include on a standard letter.

• Your contact information
• Your reasons for leaving your last position
• Positions and industries you’re particularly interested in
• Your salary history, and the salary level you expect from a new position
• Other pertinent information—such as whether you’re willing to relocate, or whether you’re willing to travel if any position requires it

Adding all of this to your cover letter is vital because it’s information that a recruiter needs before they can enter you into databases. Providing it means they don’t have to contact you to ask, and it gives you a head start over the people who didn’t include it. Other good information to include in a recruiter cover letter includes dates you’re available for interviews, how quickly you can take up a new position, and also any other recruiters you might be working with.

Cover letters sent to recruiters should be as short as possible, again because recruiters don’t have time for lengthy letters. Keep it brief while making sure it contains all the required information. Use bullet points to emphasize your most important professional skills and achievements, so that a recruiter can quickly see your key selling points.

Many recruiters enter cover letters as well as resumes into searchable databases—for this reason it’s a good idea to load both documents, rather than just your resume, with relevant key words and phrases.

Finally, if you’re emailing your information to a recruiter, find out what types of document formats they require. Some prefer to receive a cover letter as an attachment, while others don’t open attachments and instead want to see a cover letter included in the body of an email.

Still Stuck? Try our Cover Letter Creator. 

Also, please review our Cover Letter section for free examples and tips.  If you need more help, please consider using a Career Counselor.