How Long Should A Cover Letter Typically Be

The old saying you only have one chance to make a first impression is definitely true when meeting someone in person and it is just as important when you are writing to someone regarding a potential job opportunity.

How long should a cover letter typically be. You crafted a flawless resume and now youre ready to apply. The exception would be when an employer requests a letter thats a specific length or number of words. How long should a cover letter be. Finally an organization posted your dream job.

In fact as far as how long your cover letter should be shorter is better. The average reading speed of an adult in the us is roughly 300 words per minutesince hiring managers typically spend less than a minute reviewing a. It is also easier to write cover letters in bulk say if one allocates 3 hours on tuesday to check for new job postings write all cover letters for newly posted positions one after another that same afternoon. Depending on the industry that cover letter email shouldnt be too long but again these are typically hiring managers that dont put too much emphasis on a cover letter.

A cover letter for an academic position should be no longer than two pages but long enough to show off your accomplishments. Follow these five tips on how to achieve the right cover letter length so employers can spend time evaluating your application for its content rather than its size. This said the ideal font size for both is 12 pts. The dos of writing a spectacular cover letter.

Dont exceed 400 words. That said it has to be long enough to create a compelling case that you are the best person for the job which might be tough in half a page or less. In my industry for example web development half page is usually fine and is pretty casually worded too. You land on the cover letter section of the application and see that it is optional.

Cover letter should be 250 300 words long. How many words should a cover letter be of. The typical academic cover letter is usually one and a half to two pages long or about five to eight paragraphs. Research teaching departmental service and relevant accolades.

This is because thats the number of words that take up a little more space than half a page with 12 pt. The font you use for your cover letter should be of the same font size as that of your resume. In one survey 70 of hiring managers said they preferred a cover letter to be either half a page or the shorter the better. In general a saddleback college survey reported that 70 of employers wanted a cover letter of less than a full page and about 25 said the shorter the better.