02.02 - Cover Letter Review
[00:00:00] Okay. So today we're doing a webinar on cover letters and then we're also going to be reviewing a webinar, our cover letters that you have sent over to review. If you haven't sent them over yet you can, there should be an announcement.
As I said, today's program is about cover letters and the do's and don'ts of them and how to prepare good cover letters.
Most people when you prepare a cover letter for any job you, you are essentially trying out and people do review cover letters. Most of the time people are not going to spend a lot of time in your cover letter. So your cover letter actually can do either do a lot of harm, which most cover letters can do, or they can help you and and a good cover letter, which I'll go through when I show you guys cover letters today can actually be very beneficial.
And they can get you a position by showing how well you write your ability to catch people's attention and all sorts of things that are very important. And your resume we reviewed resumes last week. If you haven't seen that we should be [00:01:00] putting that up shortly.
The resume review webinar, but the resume is obviously on the most important part of everything. But the cover letter as well can really hurt you one typo in a cover letter can often prevent you from getting hired at firms a cover letter that goes into too much detail or highlights, your weaknesses can do a lot of harm.
And then a cover letter that seems a little bit too, over the top, in terms of your opinion of yourself can often do a lot of harm as well. I was thinking about cover letters specifically last night and I don't know what got me thinking of them, but one of the things that people do that are very successful is they're able to basically highlight what they can do for you.
And they don't really talk too much about themselves. If a cars if someone's selling an example would be selling vitamins. Tim Ferriss, who's pretty well known for writing the four hour workweek and all those sorts of books Or that book specifically actually got his start by selling vitamins [00:02:00] and he sold I don't know, some sort of brain vitamin and and that was his first business and that's what he based everything on.
And it's interesting to look at the type of copywriting he did there and essentially what he was doing when he was trying to sell this brain vitamin was just talking about, how this vitamin can do all this stuff for you. It didn't really talk about what was in it. It just talked about, how it would make you a better person and so forth.
And it's the same thing with a cover letter, like your cover letter. Really doesn't need to go into a lot of detail about you. It really needs to talk more about what you can do for other people. And and to think about that, because if you say something in your cover letter, like I was the highest biller in my firm, or I'm did this and that that looks like it makes you a very good employer in a very good employee for an employer that can help you a lot and will make a huge difference.
And and in many cases it's the only tool you have to separate yourself from a lot of [00:03:00] applicants out there besides your resume. And so there's really no formula to follow. One thing I do recommend that everyone do is very successful organizations, whether it's Groupon or different types of things often become very powerful based on the strength that their copywriting and able to write a very short catchy things that get people's attention.
If you're like a BCG candidate or you've used any of our services, you've probably received things from us that are very short and try to get your attention. And a cover letter, is basically the same thing when people are writing emails, for example, whether it's an application email or anything, but the whole purpose of the email is to get people to click on a link.
And the whole purpose of your cover letter is to get people to to bring you in a foreign interview. In order to do that you have to follow a lot of the same rules. So people would be that people try to follow with emails, which are you don't want to be too long because most people don't have a lot of time.
You want to highlight the important points [00:04:00] first, and then you want to try to. Establish a lot of credibility. So I'm going to just give a quick presentation today about cover letters. And then I will review all the cover letters that have been sent. Let me just put in an email address here to everyone where you can tell me actually yeah, let me I think it's Jenkins that and he's actually the guy that helps me with these webinars is out today, but I'm going to put in is Email address.
So he, you can send him you can send things to his account or, and you can also send it to you can send that to that account and then we should be able to get those during the webinar so we can review your resume. So I will the first thing I'm gonna do is just talk a few things about five things you should do, and five things you shouldn't do in a cover letter.
And then we'll take a quick break and then come back. And anybody that sends our cover letter we can we'll review. So the first thing is just to remember the people that are reading your cover letter tend to be very busy and most employers when they're [00:05:00] hiring and reading cover letters and you have to put yourself in the shoes of an employer or anybody you've ever hired.
Really they're not they have a lot of work pending, so they're trying to have cases, they have, matters that need to be dealt with. And their objective really is to bring in the best person as quickly as possible. And so just, imagine you were hiring someone to do.
To take care of your shoulder and or to the yard work or to, paint your kitchen or something along those lines. You're not going to spend a lot of time reading their materials if you have an urgent need. So if you have an urgent need for a babysitter you're probably not going to spend a lot of time reading, cover letters and profiles.
You're probably gonna, see if the person has the right experience and then bring them in. If there's something that sticks out to them, but then you'll bring them in, but you have to get people's attention quickly. And your objective really is to stick out and to look as good as you possibly can with as few words, many times as you possibly can the best cover letters I've ever done and gotten the most the best response from [00:06:00] one cover letter I wrote when I was.
And I, it may have just been the time of the market, when I was personally applying for jobs, but it said something like, I'm interested in practicing law at the highest level, your firm is exactly what I'm seeking. And then and then that was it. And then I signed my name and that got a great response compared to any other letter I'd ever done.
One time I had a I used to get letters of recommendation as I'm sure everyone on this call has gotten and the best letter recommendation I got ever got was from a a very famous towards. And he's no longer alive, but sometimes people would write, letters of recommendation that were several pages long, but the best one I ever had was from a very well-known his name is Jeffrey O'Connell and and he wrote something along the lines of, I've been an attorney and law professor for over 50 years.
And if I was you, I would, definitely hire him. And that was it. And and that got me a lot of interviews for clerkships and other things. And and much more than competing letters that I got [00:07:00] before him. So sometimes the shortest and most direct letters make the best points.
And that's just something to understand if you wrote a letter to a law firm saying I've always wanted to work in this law firm since I've since I first learned about what you do in law school, I'd love to interview with you or something along those sides that can make a lot more difference than than a two or three paragraph letter that talks about things that you think are important that you've done and so forth.
But the main thing that, that you need to also realize that everyone is really looking for. And and this isn't necessarily related to cover letters it's related to everything is so impersonal these days. And it's always been, I'm personal to some extent, but the world is getting more and more impersonal.
And as the world gets more impersonal what happens is people are looking for connections. So everywhere you go people looking for connection, people are they're trying to be seen, they're trying to make friends. They're trying to be loved. They're trying to be get, have people say good things about them and everybody, but that people generally [00:08:00] want some sort of connection.
And and as that connection goes away people tend to get depressed and not feel so good. The connection is very important. So thinking about your cover letters you want people to see you as someone maybe that, feels a connection to the employer or that they can connect with.
And it's a very subtle point. But the people that are the best attorneys and the best at getting business and the best at everything really are able to make that connection. And they do it in a million different ways. And but the cover letter of course is one way you can do it is by making a very quick connection.
You can certainly write and a lot of this advice here is just a kind of standard cover letter advice. And and you can summarize the work that you've done and so forth if you're a junior associate with primary responsibility and you can, you can do all this stuff, in terms of what your cover letter is.
And and what I'm talking about here, which is to talk about yourself and to talk about some of the things that you believe are your strongest assets and [00:09:00] skills, but ultimately just from. That your ability to make a connection with the employer is really going to make a huge difference.
And and if you can connect with the person you're writing to or anybody you can do that. So there's ways of doing that. If you've overcome significant obstacles, some people may like to hear about that. Working through law school or received a scholarship to a certain law school people are happy to read about that.
And that can also separate you. But you have to be able to talk about things that you know that the employer you know, in a way that can make a connection most times that the way to make a connection is not many times to be very general in terms of your.
Your experience. So saying I've done this and this and this and this isn't something that's going to make a connection saying. I love that your firm worked on this matter. I would, I'm interested in this too, and I did get some experience there and it made me want to do this type of work, or I'd loved that, these attorneys are here or I [00:10:00] love that.
I've had, I've really felt connected. The people I've met there all those things make a huge difference connecting with people and bringing yourself into the realm of connection, as opposed to the realm of just being a number and so forth. This is what makes gets people, jobs.
It's what makes the world work is the connection. Just talking about blanket things to really directly should be, doesn't always work. Letters that are targeted and focused to towards the employer make a huge difference. And and even if you're sending it, if you're in a certain practice group, connecting with that person doing something, telling them, that, they're a graduate of your law school that they're, they've done this, that you have this in common and so forth.
And I, I can tell you so many different stories. I can, I had one so many connect letters that have made a huge difference by highlighting directly why the person is interested in each employer. So it BCG for example what we do with our candidates we actually have a lot more.[00:11:00]
Latitude when, because we're representing people so we can write all these great things about them or why they think they're great. Whereas if you do that about yourself, it doesn't look as good. So that's one of the benefits of having like a recruiter or someone like us help you. But at the same time the other thing you should think about is making a connection.
So one of the ways that we make connections with law firms and w when we write letters on a candidates behalf is we will typically tell the law firm why that person's interested in the firm. Or why that candidate why the candidates coming through us. So why is that person applying through us?
And so that. There can be lots and lots of reasons, but typically we'll go through and we'll say, if the person is doing consumer facing litigation, for example, we may say, they just says you represent a lot of consumers. They're also interested in consumer-based litigation.
They're aware that your firm is on these lists and, they might be on I know a top rank from list of BCG or us news [00:12:00] or chambers or something. And and we feel the firm would be a good fit because of that. We're also where they've had a lot of openings in the past and interviewed very similar people.
So you make a connection with people and you give a reason why you're applying to the person and doing that in a cover letter can make a massive difference in it something like that gets their attention is huge. And any type of connection so you can talk about all the things you've done but if you do a mass produced letter typically.
It's not going to be closely read. They're still going to like your resume but if you're sincere and you really want to be somewhere that's going to to make a huge difference. And sometimes just being direct about your skillset and what you like doing and if that matches what the firm says, they like that's going to be helpful as well.
An example would be I'd love doing large corporate bankruptcies. I've been doing it my whole career. My favorite thing is to work on behalf of defend, helping large companies restructure. If that's your interest and you're applying for [00:13:00] it working in doing large bankruptcies, that's what you should put in your cover letter, and that's going to get you a position, but anything you can do to make a connection as the most important.
And then again, you should state in your letter you can always state your you'll follow up to discuss a possible meaning if you like. But in most cases that's not going to do a ton of gut but following up a lot of times can make a big difference.
And I, and I think that many times one of the things that I've seen in recessions is there's always people. And again, we're not in a recession right now, but when there is a recession, there's always people that are able to rise to the top of the pile, no matter what happens.
And and the way they typically do it is they're able to to, they contact employers they go beyond what they wrote. They don't just send an application. They make sure that there's some sort of connection out there. And then the last thing I put on here is just to make sure you proofread if you're drafting a cover letter and you don't proofread it that can make [00:14:00] really hurt you.
So people make all the time will make, stupid errors and so forth the cover letters. And if you do that that can do. A ton of harm and something to be very careful about. If there's a misspelling or if you're using improper words, people could tell a lot about you by your writing style and and you certainly will not be seriously considered.
This is I guess an example where someone forwarded something about a continuance and they confused the word disc with the word disc, like a computer desk. And that looks bad. Obviously you need to, understand the importance of being careful spell check and grammar software, which we'll talk about more today when we start things can make a huge difference.
And then these are just some things that you shouldn't do Want to be around and law firms and other employers want to hire people that they believe are very enthusiastic. So they want they, they want positive things. And every application for any job [00:15:00] out there has people that are positive and people that are negative.
And the law firms always going to try to bring in positive people. And you always want to have a positive spin for looking for a new position, a positive spin is not would be along the lines of, and I w I can talk a lot about this when we start working on cover letters, but, some people will say things like.
I'm looking for new horizons or something, then a cover letter. It's much better to say that I've been working on, smaller matters and I want to work in a, an affirm that's larger, where I can work on more significant matters and, or it's much better to say I'm unhappy in my current firm because of management changed that you could say that, but it's much better to say I'm relocating to my home market because my family is there and I want to be, I want to settle down and so forth.
So people are always looking for reasons to, to hire you that are positive. And and talking about advancement or different types of experiences important but [00:16:00] you're, you need to be focused on growth as opposed to just looking for a job. And if you send out a resume that says, you're just looking for a job, someone may hire you, but it's typically going to be a mistake compared to someone that has a concrete reason for being somewhere.
And so that is very important. Affirm is trying to get a sense of your enthusiasm for the job. So just think about. You and your personal relationships with people, whether their romantic relationships or their standard kind of, friends or just, people that you meet from time to time typically the people that you want to spend your time with are going to be people that that you have a shared interest with.
So if someone just shows up at your door and says, I want to be your friend the odds are, you're probably not going to be that interested in them. But you will be interested if they say, okay, I'm I share the same. I've had the same pain as you or I, we have very similar backgrounds.
I think we could help each other. I'm [00:17:00] enthusiastic for this. I really what you, I really appreciate, your art or your I don't know, your personality, we have a lot of friends in common, something that makes you stand out is connect with people is really the most important thing.
If you show up and you say things like I'd like to be your friend, my, my friends aren't working out, I need new friends or just, no one seems to like me and that sort of thing. That's not a way to get friends. You have to have a benefit that someone offers you, if you if there's anything negative about your experience than than people or your tone or than people aren't gonna want to bring you on.
And then fluff is just, a kind of a, another type of statement. So a lot of times people will put together cover letters that will describe themselves. Blowing terms that say things like, I'm the best at this, or the best at that and so forth and that also it was not good.
Just, saying, I'm, I believe you'll find me smart, hard work and incapable of, working on a lot of things is [00:18:00] probably not good. Instead you can say things that show a history of your achievement if you want in your corporate letter.
And then talk about different things like your, your current things that you're doing that are unusual can be always good. And then specific attributes and so forth are better than just making us associate sciatic claims. And then do not use the word Iowa.
The you want to avoid sounding very self-absorbed you want to be able to show the firm your strengths and and how you're going to help them. And and then you also want to make sure you can always keep readers engaged and not necessarily regurgitate your resume your cover letter everything I've said, I hope you guys understand this, that and girls, so it's the whole point is to try to make a connection and and to not just reiterate all your experience and so forth.
You can many times give people a reason that you're maybe seeking a new job now, which is always important if it's a positive reason, which we'll talk about today [00:19:00] when we start reviewing cover letters but all of this stuff should hopefully be very closely noted.
In your, and and and your cover letter, to the extent you can. And again, don't use, very, a lot of times lawyers and especially young lawyers and law students think that they need to use, big language and so forth. You don't need to do that. You should just say shortened sentences and so forth are very important.
Complicated language distracts the reader. Hemingway is a good example. People used to learn to write like him. One of the reasons that he tended to write very short sentences, I'm sure there's a lot of reasons why he did that was because he was a newspaper reporter and he needed, he was trained to write short sentences because you had to put things over the ticker type, I think.
And so he was, and when they would communicate from Paris to wherever, were different places he was writing. So he learned to write short words in contrast someone like Dickens was paid by the word. When he was writing stories. So the point is [00:20:00] here, you want to try to not use a lot of words.
I think we'll see when we recover letters that. It's important to try to right. Very short sentences. And then the other thing is just, your formatting needs to be very clear your font choice and so forth needs to be fairly conservative.
And and then and then get a sense of, what the attorneys are looking for. And in the firm that you're applying to. And and just go from there. So these are these are just a few points for cover letters. I think I'm not gonna spend much more time on this, I think ever, everyone, I don't know how interesting it is hearing a presentation about cover letters, but if there's one thing you can remember about cover letters, it's just that the main purpose I believe is to not screw up and to make it short and also to make a connection with the employer.
Like, why are you applying? Why are you showing up here with me and so forth? And why, w why should I talk to you? And that's really it. So I will take a quick break and then I'm just going to just for one or two [00:21:00] minutes, and I'm going to pull up the cover letters. And then and then we'll go from there.
I want to make sure I have all your cover letter. So just give me one second here to pull them up. And here we go. Perfect. Okay, so here's a cover letter. Here's some cover letters. Okay. Let me let me see here. Let me see here one second. Okay. All right. So I'm going to pull up some cover letters.
Now I don't need to take much of a break, I guess I'll just start going through these. Give me one second. Yeah, we can get started and again, remember send all of your any cover letters you guys have to that email address. It's mJenkins@er.org. And then I will try to review them.
I don't have as many cover letters as I was hoping for, but I will review the ones that I have right now. So just give me one second and I'll start pulling them up. Okay. So here are the first ones let's see here.
Okay. So this [00:22:00] is the first cover letter here. And I think people just make up these names. So this isn't necessarily the person's name. One of the things that I recommend that everyone do read all night, let me fix that. Is my goodness. Gimme one second. Second.
One of the things I recommend that everyone do is when you you, everyone needs to be using software or, like Grammarly and things along those lines for for your cover letters and anything you're writing your resumes. It's it's actually imperative because there's always a lot of smaller mistakes and so forth that people make.
And and you need to be catching those small mistakes. I'll try to make it, hopefully this isn't too small. But you can also can see here that just, some small things like, this person put in over the years or whatever which is fine. But you probably don't even need to say that it would probably just do that.
And then you can see all these punctuation errors and so forth here. So I'm not going [00:23:00] to talk about those right now. I'll talk about them in a second. But let's talk about what this resume is doing. I would like to take this opportunity to be to submit my resume for consideration, for the position of a district attorney, major economic crimes bureau.
I am sending you my resume, not only because I'm interested in a position where most about the, I feel that my unique assets and skills. Asset for the district attorney's office. Okay. So let's see if we can track changes just so you guys can see this. Okay. I sat for the New York bar successfully was admitted in 2010, and I have since returned to Georgia where I have obtained employment in the e-discovery document review field as a project attorney documentary with 10 years experience working for someone leading law firm in the country, I have specialized knowledge and experience providing litigation support services.
Okay. Okay. So the problem with this cover letter is that this, all this stuff here is almost talking the person out of the job. So [00:24:00] this job is for the associate journey attorney, the the attorney, major economic crimes bureau. I don't even know if B would be capitalized, but I'm not going to worry about that.
All you need to say here really is I would like to apply,
To apply assistant district attorney mania for attorney open, opening,
You don't even say, I would like to apply you just say, I am applying, I'm applying
for that. We try to make this a little larger too, just for people. Give me a second here. Zoom 200.
I hate when things are slow at. Okay. So the point here is that, what you're doing is you're trying to and I'll try to do a better job tracking our changes here. But if you if you let me just see here. Show markup. You're sure I'm applying for the circuit attorney opening.
You don't need to say I'm sending my resume because I'm interested in all this stuff should probably come out. None of this is helping the person that's writing this. And then you say, I sat for the New York bar successfully as [00:25:00] admitted in 2010. Do you don't need to say that you can say I'm a member.
That's all going to be on your resume as well. So I, you're highlighting things that are already on your resume. So this, so you've said here several times that you've already submitted your resume. So I just, I want to go, this is actually very interesting. So I don't know that there's really any need here to put anything more than I'm applying for this, with this opening what the employers are concerned about is can you do the job now?
I'm going to talk about this with every cover letter and let me actually take this cover letter and I want to print it up here again, cause it's a good example for everyone. So let me just take it here again. Okay. So this is they're concerned about, and I'm just going to put it right here again for you guys.
When you're applying for any job employers are concerned about can you do the job? And we covered this kind of every week. Here's a job you want the job?
Can you be managed?
Will you do the job? Long-term
and and then the other one It's do we [00:26:00] like it?
So these are all questions that you have to ask yourself. And this is very important because this cover letter is very similar to every sort of cover letter. That I see. All markup. Okay. Let me say, okay, that's not working. Let me just see her on Trish, on the markup on markup.
Okay. Do you want the job basically means you're can you do the job means can this person, is this person going to be a good attorney? Is this person going to be a good assistant district attorney with a major economics crime, with a major economics crime bureau? And and my thought would be, they haven't said anything on here, the only thing that they've said that makes them eat anywhere near suited for this is admitted to the New York bar, but that's probably not enough.
Do you want the job? There's nothing in this, there's nothing in this letter that shows if the person wants the job, all this letter saying is they've lived in Georgia, us for the past 14 years. There's nothing specific about the [00:27:00] person's experience. Nothing about the experience that makes that even a real, a realistic possibility.
So there's nothing there about that. There's nothing that shows the person can be managed because they've done nothing but contract jobs. So they've only had short-term employment. And there's nothing that shows the job. They could do it longterm only short-term employment, which is okay. They were applying for document employment and there's no connection.
Zero connection. There's no connection. So there's nothing that we can see in this person that makes them and there's no connection. There's nothing that shows they know anyone there's no there's nothing that shows their new Yorker. There's nothing that shows that they share anything in common with anybody.
That would possibly be an asset for this job. So that's the problem. This cover letter is not going to get this job if they do hire this person it would be a miracle, but there's just no connection. What I would recommend here is [00:28:00] doing this and just, and then you could say are you moving to New York or what is the reason, for you applying, because if this person is in another state all you would need to say is I am a member of the New York fire,
the New York bar I'm a member of the new Yorker process of Monarch in the process of relocating to New York.
If that's true, That's all you need to say. And then, one, one thing I'm what if I was this person with this resume or this cover letter? I would say something along the lines of, because this person's probably not going to possibly be able to get this position as a sister district attorney with 10 years or 15 years of contractor experience, I might just say, I'm open for all potential positions.
You have I'm ready to work something along those lines. I realized I didn't, I realized my experience is not the perfect match
and with your shade consideration opposition
that's direct. And if someone sees this cover [00:29:00] letter, as opposed to, this stuff right here they're going to be much more enthusiastic about this particular candidate then then they would be this, because at least you're making a connection. At least you're showing some of this stuff here.
You're saying you're relocating. You're saying you're being humble, so you're trying to make a connection. And just along those lines, those sorts of things, can make a big difference. So anything that you can do to clear that up and make the cover letter much more direct like this, a shorter cover letter is work much better
or trying to position and you don't even need to say yeah. I realize I'm experiencing however, any for all positions. Since you have something along those lines, that's going to be much shorter and help you much more. So that's, just being direct other stuff here, I just want to I want to just go through and make sure everyone understands why this doesn't work, because everyone does this stuff.
I'm sending you my resume for this [00:30:00] position. Not only because I'm interested, but my combination of sales be an asset. It's just, that's not your discussion anyway. You have experienced in a field that's not related. And then and all this sort of thing.
So I, this was a very, this is a very good resume for a position for someone to do. Work related to anything related to document review and so forth. But other than that you're going to have to make a better case. And so something along this line is actually gonna work much better.
Because it's shorter, it's going to make it, it's going to get you in the door and and you're not competing for something that's an impossibility. With your existing cause they're going to receive better applicants in that. Okay. So let's see the next one. I don't know why I'm having problems here.
The next question is a close. You find my resume for some reason. My computer's not give me one second here. So I'm having a problem
here. Okay. I'm sitting here. Sorry. My computer's locked up or something. Give me one second.
Okay. All right. So this next one, dear Mrs. [00:31:00] Brett close. You'll find a copy. Same name of my additions for an illegal administrative specialist.
Okay. I don't know why my computer's having problems here or not because I'm interested in fishing, but most of all, I feel that I'm highly qualified. And we're going to ask that to the U S department of labor, as you will see, I have six years experience from litigation category six, took a very similar resume.
Okay. This is the same person it looks like. Okay. Okay. All this is th this is a very similar resume here. So let me just copy and paste this. Let me get a new document. And then we'll
go one second. Yeah. Okay close. You will find a copy of my resume. Okay. So all this stuff, when you say I'm close your, find a copy of my resume you can see here too this is very interesting and I just want to go through these suggestions. You can see all the the, kind of the suggestions that that the program's making.
So all the suggestions are important because it's going to the person didn't put up specialized, they [00:32:00] didn't spell out the word six. They could use the word job instead of PO and, and they used there's punctuation missing there's commas missing there's and then, and so you can just see at the pleasure or, all this kind of stuff that's in here.
And I don't want to spend too much time going through this, but these are just some of the changes that the grammar software made. That's a lot in a very small space of time. And so the problem with that is what this person's doing essentially, by writing all this and not proofreading things is they're demonstrating that they don't proofread things.
And and that's a problem. So here, you can just say, I'm applying, I'm going to take this proof-read example, cause this is just the most basic things to proofread this. And then I'll mark this up and all you say here is you say, I am applying legal administrative position. You don't have to say you're highly qualified. That's for them to make a I'm applying Okay, [00:33:00] this is actually a much better cause this is the same person that was working as a contract attorney. And now they're saying they have six years of experience providing litigation specialized litigation support services. I would just say I have six years of experience providing litigation support services.
That's it. So again shares of experience and a lot of this is things that people learn when they're copywriting. And okay. People don't talk like this. Like I want the pleasure to discuss further that's enough right there. I look forward to hearing from you even this you can, this is okay. The person providing litigation support services. You may want to say I've now I, I'm proficient.
Numerous litigation support, software tool, something along those lines,
something along those lines. So here, again, you ask yourself the same questions does this person, do they want the job? Do they, have, are they likely to all those questions job, can they do the job.
What are you doing? Do you want the [00:34:00] job? What do you do the job long term? Can you manage,
what do you do the job?
So I would write down these five questions for every cover letter and and if this is the litigation administrative legal administrative specialist position requires this these skills, then you, then this shows you can do the job can you be managed if there's a way to put that in there, I've worked for the same agency for 10 years or whatever that would be good.
And interested and then will you do the job? Long-term, there'll be like, so these things if you can get those in that cover letter it's going to be much better. Okay. So let me go, I've got some new cover letters here. Good. And if you can send more that would be great, but I will do this and let me just sit here and found okay. So this one is, I'm a newly licensed lawyer I'm writing my expressed interest in the litigation counsel position at Google.
Okay. Okay. That's fine. I can move this person that was there. Doesn't matter to me. And let's see. Okay, so this is interesting. [00:35:00] I'm a new, I'm a newly licensed lawyer and writing to express my position of litigation counsel position at Google. If you asked, can you do the job if this new licensed lawyer that the the answer to that question is probably going to be no.
So I would just think about that how is that possibly related to, how does that show that they can do the job? I would just say, I am you don't want to put in I'm newly licensed. That's probably not going to help you very much.
I would, and if you're newly licensed in August that means that you just took the bar or you took it for a second time. Which is fine, but you probably don't want to draw attention to that. So I would just say I'm writing to express my interest in bleeding and Google, you would say, not Google, but Google the and in your litigation predict and your litigation they know their Google.
So you don't need to say that. We take that out. My interest in Google has been established by one year internship in a hospital. As a public corporation whose mission is [00:36:00] public service. Okay. Google is a is a for-profit company. So it's probably not and being, having an interest in that doesn't make you qualified either.
So that has nothing to do with anything. So I would take that out. And
okay, so now this person is a newly licensed attorney with extensive litigation experience. Okay. That's impossible. Okay. But you hear, you could say as a litigation and I'm just doing it this way as a litigation associate and At my, at Ari law. And one of the things I would recommend to when you're doing letters like this is keep in mind. If you're applying to Google, they're probably going to get a lot of applicants from lots of major companies.
So you may not want to be drawing attention to the fact that you practice at a small firm. You might draw that pack to people if you were doing that but you may not wanna draw the expense, attention to that, but that's up to you, but I would just say as a litigation associate[00:37:00] I, and I don't know if you're applying as a newly licensed attorney in August and you are no longer employed, I'm wondering if you're still employed there, that's the question the employer is going to be asking, but I was involved in and I would just say I was involved in from drafting complaint or cross complaints to trial materials.
Okay. So let's just, I want to just show you one thing here too, just so you understand some of the issues with this particular letter, and I think it's important. I'm editing it for you, but I do want to show you a few things here when this grammar stuff starts. So you know, this is fixed.
You can see here and then there's spacing issues. There's a newly is correct grammar. I have gained extensive litigate. You can see that you can say in my ability to pay attention to throughout the years Okay. At my prior roles. Okay. In particular motion as the first ever law clerk at IBA, the [00:38:00] international bar.
So anyway, you can see all these issues here. So there's a lot of them and there's really no excuse for this, these errors. You can't if there's, if you're making lots of errors there, there's no excuse. And especially if a, of a, just an off the shelf grammar program, keep them up.
So here, I'm just going through this and writing stress free interest in your litigation counsel position. As a litigation associate, I was involved in, and then I would just say drafting complaints you don't need to put all that information in there drafting complaints, and you don't need to say cross complaints and complaints.
And and then I would just say, and preparing trial materials,
There's probably more than that. From drafting complaints, preparing trial materials motions. And so this is same thing here. You're just saying prepared and argued motions for forensic copy. Okay. I refined my time management skills. Okay. You can see here just so everyone here needs to there's a book.
I [00:39:00] independently managed my own case loads and deadlines. I hadn't really managed my case loads, my own case loads, and then that means deadlines as well. Okay. And then work to the rainy and bar association. Okay. That's great. So in the Supreme court, Amaka miss brief. That's great too.
But it's still this stuff probably should just the stuff being cute via zoom, it's 20, 21 in person. It's the employer's job to do all of this. So I would take that out. So let's just go through and fix this here. So I'm going right in my interest in your litigation counsel position as a litigation as a litigation associate, I would just say I have.
I have drafted motions, drafted, participate, something along those lines independently. And that's basically the same thing. I, as you've said down there and then there's a law clerk, no one cares. You were the first as a law clerk I [00:40:00] detailed and my, my research, it just say my, you don't have to say detailed and substantive. Just say my research. Contributed to that. So that's just sounds much better. Now you're talking about my, my cases my, my, my cases is a LA carte. Yeah.
So law clerk I would just say that as a law clerk, you can say that my research contributed to this and that's just sounds very good. And and this is and then, maybe a line or two about, what is it about. Google, that appeals to you.
Some of the things that I don't necessarily like in this letter, and this is much shorter here you say your management, my cases locker on this, and then you're very short. And and you don't and can fix that. Let's see I fixed that language.
This is much shorter. It basically says the same thing. And it doesn't waste a lot of time. Everyone loves Google or most people do. So you don't need to talk about that. And here, the problem with all this is, you're saying I'm a newly licensed lawyer which is getting you this creating [00:41:00] doubt.
Okay. Why would someone hire a newer, I'm writing, of course you're writing, this is a writing. Everyone knows you're writing. My interest has been established. This makes no sense that to argue that it would be established when you were working for a public corporation, his interest as public service Google is out to make money.
They're being sued by countless people for taking advantage of advertisers, privacy. And it's a very, there's a lot of good things about the company, but I'm saying that's just not a good argument. My interest in litigation experience working in house legal matters has been an ex makes me an excellent candidate.
That's their decision. So you need to talk about that. Now you're talking about a very small law firm. You're also basically implying that you're no longer working there because you're saying I was involved. And then you're talking about in language that doesn't really make a lot of sense and that stuff.
And then you're talking about how you were the first law clerk, and you're talking about I don't know what kind of organization this is, but and it may help you if someone reviewing your resume is familiar with aspire [00:42:00] association, but typically you're, it may not.
Just, just it's special interest groups and so forth don't necessarily always help you. And then all this extra language, zoom meets 2020 when a person is just fluffy and doesn't make any sense. So this is a much better cover letter. And again you, you just say this and then you're done.
You don't and maybe you just say I always wanted to work, so many reasons,
Something along those lines that makes a connection. It makes people like you. And that's it and this is going to make a much better. You talk about the script court you talk about you managing your own cases and you don't go into a lot of detail and that's it.
And so you don't need to, no one needs to say a lot, and this makes you look much stronger because here you were talking about things that arguments that make no sense working at very small firms working for an a special interest group that may or may not people may or may not like it's also, it's a country that is variously at war with the [00:43:00] United States.
So I mean that, again, most Americans that are, from Iran are. Dislike around, but it's the fact of that, but that's just a point. So you have to think about how all this is for optics and then telling people that zoom is 2021 in person. Google actually has their own thing that they use that they've developed for web conferencing.
So telling them to meet via zoom is probably gonna piss them off. Cause this may actually go to, that all they use is their own Google thing over there. So just, these sorts of things weaken in your cover letter and you need, you just need to do whatever you can to make things stronger.
And everyone needs to that's how you would fix that. Let's go to the next one. And thank you by the way, everyone who has been sending your cover letters during this. This is helpful. And let me just see here and I will pull up the next one for you. I have in this section one looks pretty good.
I actually liked it. And this looks very good. It's pretty cool. Actually the one I'm just going to pull up, so I'm just cut and paste [00:44:00] it. Okay. I actually just the look and feel of this cover letter. I like right off the bat. I like this person has cut and pasted something in the signature.
That's cool. I liked that, but they were also applying to a government organization. So they're putting this sort of stuff up here, sometimes people we'll put these things up on cover letters just speak. You have to, when you're applying to government jobs one thing I am noticing, let me just see here.
This is in times new Roman and this is an aerial font everything really should be in the same font. I don't know why the person cut and pasted that it says here they're do some small errors I don't think they're that serious, but everyone needs to learn the rules of one to four being spelled out.
Ah, that's a big thing. And then here you can see it's worked on a number of just say several shorter language is always important. And then yeah, I appreciate, thank you. I appreciate your consideration. Okay, so I'm gonna so these are just some small things I did with this [00:45:00] cover letters to fix it.
But now I'm going to go through and work on it. I liked the look and feel of this. I don't like this this this thing that's not in times Roman. The reason by the way it's important to, that everything be in the right font and so forth. It's just because when people are reviewing things that it makes them it makes the attorney, it makes the people reviewing them.
If they see a font, that's just an attention to detail issue. That's just kinda how attorneys think. Okay. So let's see here. So this person says as an attorney with over 20 years of experience in policy development, legislative drafting, anti corruption, litigation, international law, I'm ready to apply for the attorney advisor position.
Okay. Okay. So this is a attorney advisor position with the money laundering asset recovery section which is great. But at the same time You don't want to there's a couple of things that this person is highlighting that may not be helpful. They're talking about the fact that they do things that may not necessarily be [00:46:00] related.
And and they're talking about all their experience. So just remember a lot of times people want younger people in jobs you need to be careful. You don't always don't want to highlight how much experience you have once you get beyond that many, but that's maybe. Okay. You talking about policy development and so forth, that's relevant to the job.
It's okay. But international law, if it's relevant maybe okay. But let's, I'm going to keep reading this to make a decision about that. I currently work as a contract attorney. Okay.
Okay. Previously I provide a pilot soon development related to assist in foreign officials to us foreign aid nations. Okay. Most recently I also design and taught a 16 hour. Okay. Pakistan here, this person looks like another spy, maybe not. Okay. So before working international, I served for four years as a non persuasion attorney drafting having to work Sensely noxious regard for the high quality.
Let me just go to provide an accurate authoritative advice, but [00:47:00] sensitive issues under time. Okay. So I liked this resume. I'd like this person because I think that they're taking whatever this is seriously and they're very interested in the government and and it comes through and it will on their resume to, I hope.
And it seems like they probably do want this job and probably do enjoy working in the government. So that's very good. They probably can be managed, I would think but we'll talk a little bit about that and probably would do the job long-term so there's a lot of good things about this resume, but let me just show you here.
The changes that I'll make, just because I think that it can be much better. I
Yeah, this is, you already say it up here. And then here you say currently work as a contract attorney. That's fine. I would just say, I currently work with you don't need to say contract, you're drawing attention to the fact that you're not a permanent employee which may impact whether or not your ability to be managed, wanting to do a job long-term here saying you'd be over 20 years of [00:48:00] experience will come through in your resume.
Council
I just say I assist you. No, you don't want to say I assist HSS attorneys because that makes it sound like you're not even working as an attorney and yet you're, or you're working for other attorneys, helping them do things. And instead of the responsibility. So I would take that out.
I would just say assist. I I work I just say I work, work on something along those lines work on
And just multiple countries.
Okay. Okay. This stuff here belongs in your resume. But the fact that you've taught all this stuff from policy development and legislative drafting and stuff is probably not it's detracting from whether or not you can be managed or, why the person someone's going to ask, why is this person spending all this time, doing that and so forth.
Before working internationally, I served for four years. Okay. I would go up like this. I also
So this basically needs to be this paragraph probably needs to just come out. I would just say something [00:49:00] along those lines and and re restate it all. This is good information, but it's going to be on your resume. Prior to this position throughout my career,
analysis, something along those lines. And I thought I could help you, and then this is it. I appreciate your consideration and you don't have to say, I look forward to hearing from you because, they might say no. So why would you look forward to that? Just say appreciate your consideration and, very much, Picture your consideration, that's it. What I would like to see in this cover letter is this is all good here. But I don't even know if you need to put this in here. This particular thing I would just say throughout my career, essentially, and what the us and abroad and offices, revolver garner for the analysis period or colon period I'm skilled at providing accurate and authoritative bias often about sense issues in our time.
I'm something along those lines. That's very good. And then instead of drawing attention to fact of your contracts attorney, you've had all these different jobs, all you're doing is basically saying you've worked for the government [00:50:00] and that's what I would put in there.
And if people see that they're going to like that, and then all this stuff can come out and it can be much shorter. And and it's really making a better point about what you do. So that's how I would handle that. Thank you, by the way, for people that are sending their resumes, I know I can see what we received some and that, that would be helpful.
I only thing I would like do you know people, do you ha what kind of experience do you have? Why are you applying for this specific position? What about the job listing makes you a good fit, something along those lines, and then that would be much better. Your final cover letter would basically look like this.
Something along those lines. And then that, and that basically makes the point much better but then you need to make some sort of connection, do we like you? You can, I am a career government attorney, federal us government attorney.
So I mean something along those lines as much better. I think
we'd like to be considered.
Okay. So one of the things, let me just tell you guys a secret that can be very helpful sometimes for this sort of thing. So I'm [00:51:00] assuming that you may know because this person's probably already in DC, I'm guessing you can you can say something along the lines of sometimes now you may speak to someone, this is a good trick.
I'm going to show everyone, but sometimes you can you you can speak to someone that works in this division. You can speak to someone about them. You can do something about this. You could say I've spoken with so sometimes it's, if you can call someone in the department and to, name.
And appreciated
all their insights
inside or something. And if something along in appreciate it. So what happens when you do things like that? When you put things like this into the sort of thing, it can be helpful. And so here you can you, if you have someone's name a lot of times, you may speak to someone in the department and just say, I had some questions about the position.
Would it be up again to apply? You can sometimes call before applying, and if you say something nice about the person you spoke to [00:52:00] that person's going to feel good because, and then when they forward the resume they're going to be a little bit concerned about your background, about making sure you could see it and so forth.
So sometimes this is a good tactic, if people in the company that can be good, but a lot of times, flattering someone if you could possibly find someone there and make a phone call, or if, because you already work in DC finding someone and you can, put a few lines about this and be very nice and respectful to the person that sort of stuff can help you a great deal.
That's one way to do that. It can be helpful. Okay. So let me see I appreciate that was sent over. Let me see if I can do some other ones here. Give me one second. Same one. I got another one here. I keep getting the same one. Okay. Here's another one second.
Okay. So this is
another one. And again, if anybody has any cover letters, they would like me to review, just send them. Cause I think I'm almost running out here. Okay. So foreclosure attorney concern, I'm [00:53:00] writing to introduce myself okay. This is actually cut and paste from a a a
call it color
PDF. So that's why the actual real document looks much different than this. But I will go through this particular one right here, just to show you what it looks like. Okay. Real briefly this particular cover letter and we'll talk a little bit about this year for your inspection. And I appreciate this person sending this over. They sent it as a a PDF site. I don't have any ability to edit it but I will look it at like this way to express.
And I'll just show you the way there, the real one looks so you guys can take a look here here real quickly. So this is the way the real cover letter looks, let me just fix this. Give me one second. Okay. So this person is Sam introduced myself and to express my interest in the foreclosure training opportunity currently available with this particular firm, my legal experience includes, but is not limited to.
Okay. But this particular covered letter what I [00:54:00] would recommend is th there's really no reason. If the person, if someone can get all this information from your resume. So there's really no reason to to have all of this stuff on here.
So you may experience includes, but is not limited to it's actually much better just to to not have it there. And and the reason is because if the foreclosure attorney may not need to have, covenants not to compete third-party administration and so forth there's a lot of other issues too like third-party administration, there should be a dash after that.
You should never send something to whom it may concern. You should always try to have a contact there. And then and then you never want to say things like I'm Brian to introduce myself and just say, I'm applying for this position. And then obviously you're writing to consumer law attorneys.
So you don't need to say you're applying to them. I'm just saying I'm writing to apply for this position. You have you don't need to say you're familiar with words per with how to use word everyone. [00:55:00] And that's something that people put in there a lot. You don't need to put that in there.
There's nothing about that, that most, people in Salesforce, by the way, I think there's one word. And so you need to make sure that you just know no one ever needs to have any of this. So I would, with this particular cover letter, I would take all this stuff out right here.
And then you don't need to tell people you're enclosing a copy of my resume. If th this language is much doesn't need to be as long as it is, you can, all you need to say here is you don't even need to say that. You need to say, I hope to discuss this opportunity with you and that's it.
And you don't need to say for your inspection, just sounds a little over the top and then cordially anyway. So that's how I would recommend with this particular email is just really doing whatever you can to shorten it up. Don't talk about experience. It has nothing to do with a job.
Don't talk about your ability to work with these programs that have nothing to do with a job, or they may, but it's just a standard requirement. This is like saying I speak English, [00:56:00] so St and provision with word it's like saying I speak English. That's great. You can do things, but other than that that's how I would handle that.
So let me just see here. Okay. So I honestly think I mean it looks like, let me just make sure, I think I've got all of the cover letters here that people have sent. If I don't have any more, I guess I'll end this call. If you guys don't have any more, let me see if there's any questions.
The resume review video from last week. I don't know if it's been uploaded yet. But I will check on that. Does anyone have any other questions I can answer? If you guys have questions I'm happy to do to everyone into mark handle said the interview did lead to the interview which is great.
I, again, I said it was a good cover letter, but I, if you can make some changes let me see someone else said some other people so the bread bowl, webinar replays are always on BCG. Let me just check real quick for you guys. If you just sent some cover letters and make sure I CA I reviewed them if you did resend them.
So let me just check here. And if you do have them, I will send them give me one second. Okay, so [00:57:00] let me just,
can you just check in for cover letters?
Let me double check anything.
There wasn't that many. All right. So I do have a couple more to go over, which is great. So let me open these things over to you guys.
Okay. Entry level attorney.
Okay. Let's open this. So this is actually, it looks like someone did some work on the interim. So this is a it's a short one So one of the things to remember about and let's just go posting your firm's website. Okay. That's fine. I let's see strive to, or and again, I'm just working this is Unsplash infinity and that, and all these different changes here that you can be rest assured you can see quite a few errors that the, everything picked up.
So just making sure you guys are running things through grammar programs is very helpful. Can this letter is in response to the advertisement posting your firm's website for the position of entry-level attorney. So let's talk about [00:58:00] that. Are you need to, so that's gonna come out, so you're just basically going to say I'm applying
your entry. I think it's just entry level.
I'm a foreign trained attorney. No, you don't want to say that. Okay. That's a, I have a foreign trained attorney go motivated. I would hope that everyone that applies for any job is goal motivated. Okay. And then
Okay, so most of the stuff in this particular letter can come out. So here, you and this up here it was probably a little bit overkill too, so I'm going take that out. So let's talk about this. So the first thing is every cover letter needs to have it shouldn't be hiring manager, different firms have different titles of who they hire or what the, of what the title you send it to is.
So no one, so you, if you have a contact, you should always try to contact the firm and find out who it is now. Sometimes we'll say, the hiring manager, which is perfectly fine. But that I, I would try to have a person's name remember there's [00:59:00] actually, it's funny Warren buffet on his desk.
He, one of the things he has is he has a copy of her certificate from a class he to