Five plus years of experience | Five plus years of award-winning experience
Proficiency with MS Office | Experience and coursework in MS Office
Bilingual (English/Spanish) | Fluency in both English and Spanish
The power of this format should be apparent. Most cover letters in simple paragraph require the reviewer to search for your qualifications and draw his or her own conclusions about how well your skills blend with the job’s requirements. This format takes out all of the guesswork and demonstrates that you alone are the perfect candidate for this position.
Some cover letter guides suggest that you use a series of bullet points that highlight your skills in place of columns. In my opinion, this is not a good idea. Bullet points tend to lead you to talk too much about yourself and not enough about the needs of your potential employer. If you have ever been on a first date, you know that it is never a good idea to talk too much about yourself (or your ex-girlfriend or boyfriend for that matter). Instead, it is better to highlight your skills in the context of your prospective employer’s needs. The two column format is a perfect way to let the employer know that you are thinking about what they want.
Of course, there will be times when your skills may not match as well as in the example above. Usually, this happens when the employer lists some preferred attributes in addition to the basic requirements. You can still use the two column approach to demonstrate that you meet and exceed the basic requirements of the job.
In addition, make sure that you carefully match your skills with the company’s needs. For example, if the job requires two years of experience and you have ten, it may be a good idea to simply say that you meet the requirement. You could say that you have over two years of experience. In the age of corporate down-sizing, there are plenty of reasons why you might apply for a job that requires much less experience than you have.