If you’re a job seeker looking for your next move, you need every advantage you can get.
As a professional writer and editor, I’d like to take a moment to focus on the humble cover letter.
It’s been around for decades, and the task is straightforward: catch the hiring manager’s attention, put your best foot forward, and hope you’re what they’re looking for.
Cover letters are no longer required everywhere, but they’re still a common part of the hiring process—and often one of the few chances to show how you communicate.
We all used to sweat over the cover letter, painstakingly personalizing one for each employer.
Today, we have AI, which can generate a professional-looking document with perfect grammar and all the right keywords. You put in a prompt and instantly receive an output you think looks good. So you send it off with your resume.
However, many other applicants may have done the same, which means you risk blending in when what you want is to stand out.
In my experience, anything with specific details, voice, or unexpected phrasing tends to stick with a reader. I’d suggest injecting some personality to help you stand out, even if it highlights some of your imperfections.
3 Ways to Make Your Cover Letter More Distinct
Cover letters are meant to fit on a single page. You don’t need much—just enough for your voice to come through. Here are three practical ways to do it.
The Oddly Specific Anecdote
Instead of saying you “have excellent crisis-management skills,” you might try describing a moment like a kitchen flooding 20 minutes before a 100-person charity gala. What did you notice first? What did you do immediately? How did you keep things from falling apart?
You don’t need a dramatic story. You just need something that a reader can picture. Specific detail does the heavy lifting here, and it signals credibility far more effectively than polished phrasing ever will.
What You’d Say Over Coffee
Most cover letters slip into a tone that no one actually uses in real life.
Imagine you’re sitting with a colleague or friend at a coffee shop having a casual conversation. You might say something like, “To be honest, I didn’t love this software when I first used it, but here’s how I mastered it.”
Notice how this sounds much more like your actual voice.
A Real Lesson From a Failure
Think about a mistake, a misjudgment, or a project that didn’t go smoothly, and what it taught you.
Then focus on what shifted for you afterward. What would you do differently now? What did you stop doing? What did you start doing instead?
A reflection like that shows judgment, adaptability, and self-awareness. These are qualities hiring managers value, even if they don’t always name them directly.
Before You Hit Send
Here’s how to put a final polish on your letter before you hit send.
- Read your cover letter out loud. Do you sound like a person?
- Strip out empty filler adjectives (dynamic, innovative, passionate). They could apply to anyone and say nothing about you.
- Do a rhythm check. If every sentence is the same length, it gets monotonous. Mix it up and use short sentences to land points.
The Takeaway
Applying for a job is an act of human connection, and hiding behind a wall of sanitized, uniform text isn’t going to help you make it.
Your quirks, your specific stories, and your real voice are your edge.
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