By Angela Wahome,
There was a cover letter which had 13 “I”s in two brief paragraphs. It was so shocking that I had to stop and wonder whether this person as full of himself. Colleagues also had a look at it and we all decided that it was a good CV and cover letter so we called the candidate in for an interview. He was great. He ended up getting a job. But never stopped bothering me; how do you get rid of the “I”s?
Often a cover letter riddled with many I’s gives the wrong impression. There are three things that a person reading your cover letter could conclude; first, you are arrogant, second you are full of yourself and last you do not know enough English to be able to structure a cover letter effectively for business.
The main purpose of the cover letter is to show that you have the required skills and qualifications to do that job well. Therefore a sensible approach is to make the job or your experience the focus point of your cover letter, not you.
The way to do this is to present experience in the third person;
• Instead of writing “I worked as” write “This position offered the opportunity to.”
• Where formerly you may have written “I graduated” or “Graduated from” list yourself in third person “Graduate of.”
• Pretend you’re writing it for someone else and find professional titles to fill in for him or her such as “candidate” or “Sales Manager.”
• You may avoid writing of “I am writing to apply for the job advertised” maybe write something like “Enclosed please find my CV regarding the Sales Manager FMCG position.”
I hope this helps bring some perspective to how you may create a good CV to get you that job.
There was a cover letter which had 13 “I”s in two brief paragraphs. It was so shocking that I had to stop and wonder whether this person as full of himself. Colleagues also had a look at it and we all decided that it was a good CV and cover letter so we called the candidate in for an interview. He was great. He ended up getting a job. But never stopped bothering me; how do you get rid of the “I”s?
Often a cover letter riddled with many I’s gives the wrong impression. There are three things that a person reading your cover letter could conclude; first, you are arrogant, second you are full of yourself and last you do not know enough English to be able to structure a cover letter effectively for business.
The main purpose of the cover letter is to show that you have the required skills and qualifications to do that job well. Therefore a sensible approach is to make the job or your experience the focus point of your cover letter, not you.
The way to do this is to present experience in the third person;
• Instead of writing “I worked as” write “This position offered the opportunity to.”• Where formerly you may have written “I graduated” or “Graduated from” list yourself in third person “Graduate of.”
• Pretend you’re writing it for someone else and find professional titles to fill in for him or her such as “candidate” or “Sales Manager.”
• You may avoid writing of “I am writing to apply for the job advertised” maybe write something like “Enclosed please find my CV regarding the Sales Manager FMCG position.”
I hope this helps bring some perspective to how you may create a good CV to get you that job.
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