{"id":1351,"date":"2019-03-05T12:02:57","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T12:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/?p=1351"},"modified":"2025-10-22T15:17:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:17:21","slug":"cover-letter-advice-less-is-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/2019\/03\/05\/cover-letter-advice-less-is-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Cover letter advice: Less is more!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Often, students don\u2019t realise that when they provide lots of examples in their cover letters, they can actually be causing more harm than good. Yes, it\u2019s important to give various examples to prove you\u2019re right for the role, but ensuring you give enough <strong>detail<\/strong> is key!<\/p>\n<p>So here are my top tips\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It\u2019s best to include just one example per paragraph<\/li>\n<li>Examples should vary between work, academic, personal and extra-curricular<\/li>\n<li>Avoid listing a range of responsibilities \/ job tasks you have done<\/li>\n<li>Focus on the most important\/impressive\/relevant experiences<\/li>\n<li>Implement the \u2018STAR\u2019 technique (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to explain examples<\/li>\n<li>Give relevant details (facts\/figures)<\/li>\n<li>One example should highlight a range of relevant skills<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So examples should be specific \u2013 think of a time when you have done something that can <strong>demonstrate <\/strong>a variety of important skills for the role.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><u>What not to do<\/u><\/p>\n<p><em>\u2018I have acquired substantial knowledge related to cyber security such as the mathematics behind cryptography, public and private key cryptography, the fundamentals of SSH and many more. I have also greatly enhanced my coding skills in programming languages such as java, C and Python by completing multiple projects.\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The employer doesn\u2019t get a sense of what kind of <strong>achievements<\/strong> you made \u2013 how can they assess how good you are in these areas without a specific example?<\/li>\n<li>Listing all the areas you\u2019ve studied also gives the impression that you don\u2019t know which is most important \/ impressive for the role \u2013 the key is to <strong>stand out<\/strong>!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><u>A better example\u2026<\/u><\/p>\n<p><em>\u2018I believe I will thrive when adapting to the differing roles. In my role at Missguided, Selfridges, I demonstrated this skill whilst adapting to a sales environment and winning the \u2018Sales Assistant of the Week\u2019 award. I achieved this by working closely with my team to learn best practice in providing a high-quality service for customers. I was attentive, recommended additional products in line with their tastes, and hence, exceeded my sales target\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Example shows adaptability, teamwork, communication, drive and ability to learn quickly.<\/li>\n<li>Gives detail in <strong>how <\/strong>achievements were made<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For some constructive feedback on your cover letter, book a <a href=\"https:\/\/myfuture.bath.ac.uk\/students\/appointments\/app\/topic\/1?siteId=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CV and Applications Advice<\/a> appointment!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Often, students don\u2019t realise that when they provide lots of examples in their cover letters, they can actually be causing more harm than good. Yes, it\u2019s important to give various examples to prove you\u2019re right for the role, but ensuring...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1177,"featured_media":1352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[748],"tags":[4,16,384,396,41,120],"class_list":["post-1351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","tag-advice","tag-applications","tag-cover-letter","tag-guidance","tag-skills","tag-top-tips"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/82\/2019\/02\/blurred-blurry-bright-1556654.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}