How to Write a Cover Letter With No Experience (How to Write a Great Cover Letter)

Hey there .

Welcome to Work in progress .

A How To series that's meant to help you with everything from prepping for a job interview to boosting your confidence or negotiating a raise .

Here's today's question , job searches are hard and as if finding the job that you love and can spend more time in isn't hard enough .

You also have to have a cover letter and a resume that are tailored to the specific job .

And before you feel overwhelmed , because I know that if you don't have any experience , you're probably thinking , where should I start ?

We're going to help you out .

Even if you've never worked a day in your life , you do have skills and experience that you can draw upon that will impress as a hiring manager for the entry level role .

All of us had to do this .

So you're not alone .

Here are a few key pointers that you can snag to write a great cover letter and land .

Your dream job , determine your skills .

You might be applying to your first full time job that and that's why you want to start by identifying your skills .

If you're a college student , you can draw on skills from classes you've taken and papers you were assigned , you probably have strong research abilities .

In addition to time management and teamwork management , maybe you have experience presenting in front of an audience .

Do you have volunteer or extra curricular experience ?

Even if you can only draw on an experience where you were required to be reliable by showing up at a certain time at a certain day each time .

That's ok .

That's experience too .

And it totally counts think back through your achievements or past activities and come up with a list of skills that you are required to have , compare your skill with the job posting .

Now it's time to look at the job posting inside the job posting .

There's actually a lot of clues on what exactly the employer is looking for , including the skills that they want you to have .

You might find these under responsibilities , the description or even the requirements .

So a great thing to do is to look at this job description , see what skills are required , compare it to your list and see how you can actually change your language of the skills you wrote down to match exactly what they're looking for .

And you're gonna want to use this , you know , in your resume and in your interview .

But you're also gonna want to make sure that it goes into your cover letter to really sell them on what you're the best fit for the job , write your five part cover letter .

We won't get into the logistics here because we actually detailed the step by step directions that you want to follow for your cover letter in a post .

But here are the five things that you want to make sure to include introduction .

Why you're the perfect fit , why the company is a perfect fit for you , your closing and the post script .

It's totally natural to be nervous during a job search , but especially when it's your first time searching for a job .

But something that you really want to remember is that confidence is key to really conveying your skills and your fit for the role .

So don't worry , take it from us , learn how to create a great cover letter and go in confidently and remember use our cover letter article to help you walk through the writing process .

If you need help identifying those keywords we talked about earlier , we have a free resource to help you learn how to pick up on those key phrases that are hidden in your job posting .