On your mark! Getting started always feels difficult. When you start to think about writing a letter of application there are lots of things you need to consider to ensure your letter sounds great, looks great and gets to the right person. It might be worth writing a small action plan to help you think about how you are going to get everything right!

You might be writing a letter of application because the job vacancy asked for one, or you might be sending letters out to enquire about possible vacancies. Either way it is really important that you find out about the organisation or company that you are applying to. You also need to know the name of the person you will be sending it to. You don't put a message in a bottle, chuck it off a cliff and expect it to get to your mate by the end of the weekend! Remember, it's pointless spending ages writing a wicked letter that doesn't get to the right person!

Get Set!

• Address it to the right person
  
  
• Put your contact details on it……how great would it be to impress an employer with a fab letter…..and they can't contact you for an interview…Doh
  
  
• Get your Dear Sir/Madam/Ms/Mrs etc. and Yours sincerely/faithfully right. There should be books in your careers library to help you with this. Or speak to your tutor if you're not sure.
  
  
• Do a rough copy first and then copy it out in neat. Check spellings and grammar. Let someone else read because sometimes when you have been working on something for ages you start to miss your own mistakes. Also, what seems clear to you, might not to someone else reading it!
  
  
• Include any vacancy references, job titles and any information about the job that makes your letter clearer. Remember, employers might have advertised lots of vacancies and they need to know which one you are applying for.
  
  
• Keep it brief, you need to sell yourself in a short letter so you need to keep to the point. The job, you, your skills and experience need to be briefly highlighted in the letter so that the employer wants to find out more about you.
  
  
• You need to sound polite, professional and enthusiastic.
  
  
• If possible type the letter. You can use computers in the careers library or Connexions Centre. If you have to hand write the letter (or the employers has asked you to), make sure it doesn't look like a spider fell in the ink and aimlessly wandered across the paper! This letter is your personal advert!
  
  
• Make sure the letter is nicely presented. Use good, clean paper. No tea stains and left over pepperoni from last night's pizza!
  

Go!

This is just a short article giving you some tips, so it would be useful if you could have a look at some sample letters in the careers library or Connexions Centre. This might help you get started when writing your own. Have a look at some websites for further information and ask your Connexions Adviser and tutor to help you.

Write a brilliant letter, send it to the right person ON TIME and hopefully you will be hearing from employers pretty soon!

Good Luck
Jennie Glitherow

At school or college? Look out for Jennie's future articles which we'll have here for the first Monday of each month, and which we'll link to the best sites we can find on the Web. Why not bookmark us now?

To get back to this page to use the links on it - enter http://www.careers-gateway.co.uk/mainpage.htm and click on Magazine then Apply Yourself!

Copyright © Careersoft 2003 - First published May 2003.