Sitting in the front of your screens and scratching your head as to how to write a Letter Of Interest, which will help you in getting your dream job?
Well, then you don’t have to worry about this anymore, as today’s blog will be a good help for you to write a good interest letter.
As job seekers, if you have always wanted to work in a particular company for a specific position you have to show your interest in it, as to why you are suitable for that job, what you can offer and why you are a good fit for them.
This helps in letting the recruiters know that you are interested in a position in their company and if your skillset & qualifications align with their company or if there are any openings available they can get back to you for the same.
What’s The Difference Between A Cover Letter And A Letter Of Interest?
Many people often confuse a letter of interest with a cover letter, but let me tell you they both ain’t the same. The difference between them is that you write a letter of interest for a company that hasn’t advertised any job openings for the position you are interested in, so you write this letter of interest to let them know that you are interested in a particular position.
Whereas a cover letter is given with your resume and job application for a specific position in a company that you have applied for when it was advertised. It consists of elements like your skills, qualifications, and why you are suitable for the role.
In this blog, I will be providing some tips about how to write a letter of interest, examples of letter structure and what elements should be included & the interest format to be followed while writing.
What Is A Letter Of Interest?
A letter of interest is a formal letter written to the hiring managers, to express your interest in the company’s specific job. This letter is also known as a letter of intent or inquiry/ prospecting letter. At times what happens is you want to work for a specific company, and you search for their job opening on various platforms.
But is not always possible that companies job position remains available at times, so when you don’t see any such job opportunities or openings for the company you like, you can write a letter of interest.
Your letter of interest will answer questions about your interests in the company, how will you benefit the company, what are your qualities & qualifications, do you have the required skills that they are looking for & why are you a perfect fit for the company.
Things To Include In A Successful Letter Of Interest To Get Noticed By The Hiring Manager
1. Personal Details
To start off with the letter of interest, the first thing you are required to do is to mention your personal details. It will include your contact number, email address, date of writing the letter, the city you reside in, your LinkedIn profile, job title, and your name along with surname.
You can write it either on the left-hand side corner of your letter or on the top center depending on the layout of your letter. You can take the help of various websites which offer letter of interest samples design or an interesting template to make it look neat and professional.
2. Mention The Details Of The Employer
Write the name of the company for which you want to apply, the employer’s name /person’s name of the respective company to whom you are addressing, address of the business/company, Pincode, and city.
Don’t forget to mention for which job you are applying for, and make sure that you are sending it to the right person. So do your research and then start writing your letter.
3. Professional Greetings
Be professional and while greeting use the term “dear or hello” whichever sounds good to you. Don’t use terms like hie, hey, hi it’s unprofessional and will not create a positive impression in front of the employer.
Don’t just write the greeting and leave it. Mention the name of the person you are addressing it to. Not to use the company’s name or department name in your letter of interest. Mention the exact person name for whom this interesting letter is for, this will make an impression that you are confident and have done your research very well.
4. Letter’s Body
This is the most important part of the letter, it’s important that you keep it simple, concise and impactful without too much exaggeration. I will be dividing the body of the letter of interest into 3 parts below:
I. Opening Paragraph
Start your opening paragraph by introducing yourself which includes your name and what you do, keep it short and concise. Secondly, mention what’s your purpose to write a letter of interest. Include why you want to work for their company, and what you like about them it can be their qualities, goals, culture, and so on.
II. Middle Paragraph
In the main paragraph, you will talk about your past relevant experience and what you achieved so far in your past jobs. Write about the skills that you have which will benefit them as well and is a necessary requirement for the position.
Talk about your key accomplishments and skills, add some of the soft skills and hard skills as well, make sure not to exaggerate or write any false skills just to get the job. Also, you can mention your recent achievements if any, which are relevant to the job you are applying for.
III. Closing Paragraph
After mentioning all the relevant information, a call to action in your letter of interest is important. Let them know that you are interested in knowing more about their company, so even if currently they don’t have any job posting then in future opportunities they can consider you depending on the availability of jobs.
It’s just like an informational interview, that you can look forward to even if the company won’t have any vacancies available. It will give you a much better idea and a deep understanding of the organization you want to work for. Otherwise, if they have any job openings available they can also let you in, for a formal interview that’s why it’s important to have an effective letter of interest.
5. Closing Greetings:
End your letter of interest with terms like “Yours sincerely”, “Regards” and so on. Also below that, you can mention your name as well.
To-Do List For Writing A Successful Letter Of Interest
1. Research About Your Target Company
Before you start writing, it’s important that you have all the information about the company in front of you, because you can’t just start writing without any knowledge about the company you want to work for.
So the best place to know about the company is to go on the internet and do your research. You can also check their social media handles to know more about the target company. Check out various reviews and news stories about them & update yourself with their recent activities or projects.
Now you may think what should I research about them? get to know the core values, how their company functions, what they sell, who are their competitors, goals, skills they want their employees to have, company culture & so on.
2. Get The Right Person’s Contact
To send the email letter you will require the name and email address of the person who is responsible for the hiring process. It’s necessary that your letter of interest reaches in the right hands, so make sure you have the right person’s contact with you.
Get to know the person’s name and email address so that you can send your letter on it.
3. Make Use Of Power Words
May it be a resume or a letter of interest we often forget to make use of power words. Writing a letter as a doer may not have a good impression on your hiring managers, so write it as an achiever.
For those of you who aren’t aware of the power words, let me explain it to you in short. They are the words that effectively explain your job responsibilities, strike the reader’s mind & also make your letter or resume unique. They are words that focus on the “actions”. For eg: Instead of using terms like ” I was responsible for” or “I wrote this”, use terms like executed, initiated, created, crafted, and so on.
4. Keep It Simple And To The Point
You don’t want to sound like, that you are just writing sweet words about the company because you did good research. Don’t exaggerate any words or phrases, take the help of the information you found out in research and make smart use of it.
Do not copy-paste any information from the internet, write the whole letter of interest by yourself & give it your touch. Write it in a short and simple manner, don’t write long paragraphs.
5. Provide A CTA
At the end of your email or a letter make sure to mention a call to action. This means that after reading your letter the person has an idea of exactly what you want.
Your call to action can be about an informational interview about the company, a call to discuss further jobs, if they have any position opened in the future, or if they found you suitable they can reach out to you.
A call to action helps the reader to know what to do next.
6. Avoid Writing Fake Things
Whatever you write in the letter of interest may it be your qualifications, skills or your professional experience it should be genuine & real. Don’t just write anything because you want your dream company to offer you a job.
Try to connect your values and skills to that of the company and how you can benefit them by it. Sound confident and avoid using slang and terms like etc, other, stuff… This creates a bad impression.
7. Be Professional And Formal
After writing your first draft, read it once or twice. In order to know that everything you wrote is ready to send. Check for grammatical mistakes and spelling errors, run it through apps like Hemingway and Grammarly to check your content has no errors.
Avoid using informal language in your letter of interest. Also, you can hyperlink your work samples, portfolio, or any relevant links to your work in your email along with the letter. So that the human resources can check out your work and if relevant to their job description they can reach out to you.
The Internet had made it possible to reach out to companies and even get to know them even better. So if you had a dream company for whom you have always wanted to work for, don’t hold back.
Some companies don’t advertise their job openings, that’s why you never get to know if they have any availability. That’s why through a letter of interest you can reach out to them and show your interest in their company.
If they found you to be the best person for their company and have job openings at present moment then they can even call you for an interview.
Having a perfect letter of interest will help you get the right job in the company you desire the most. All you need to do is follow the tips provided above, do your research properly & start writing.
For Emails
Also as in current times, we don’t make use of written letters anymore, so you can still continue to write in the same format and structure for emails as well. The body of your letter of interest remains the same as the format so you don’t have to worry about it. For emails, you need to have the email address of the right person to send them your letter of interest.
With this we come to an end of this blog, I hope you got clarity on how to write an effective letter of interest and understood the do’s & don’ts while writing it.