In the following video, Caroline Ceniza-Levine, a former Fortune 500 recruiter and co-founder of SixFigureStart.com, discusses the best cover letter she remembers from her 15-year career as a recruiter.
What stands out for me watching this short video are two things:
1) The “amazing” cover letter–“one in thousands” that she remembers, Ceniza-Levine says, is not anything crazy. What did the applicant do? She wrote an introduction that caught Ceniza-Levine’s attention, and she spent the bulk of her cover letter not going on about generalities, but about specific skills she had that would directly benefit the company (which the applicant had clearly done research on).
2) This cover letter was so out of the ordinary that Ceniza-Levine initially thought that the applicant was crazy and so asked a colleague to meet with her first, “preferably in a public place.”
Happy ending, of course: the applicant wasn’t crazy, just crazy talented–and she got the job.
A good cover letter is that rare.