Writing up cover letters is an important way to demonstrate your skills in more detail to graduate employers, but there’s no question that writing them can sometimes be time consuming.

Here’s a quick guide on how you can stand out to graduate employers while saving some time.

What is a cover letter? 

A cover letter is your shot at showing employers who you are. It goes beyond just the skills and experience you’ve listed on your resume, it’s where you build on and compliment your CV. 

Cover letters allow you to apply the skills and experience you’ve gained directly to the workplace you’re applying to, and show the employer why you’d be a great fit over everyone else that’s applied. Do you have a speciality that could benefit the workplace? Why do you want to work there specifically? This is where you can flesh everything out. 

A cover letter is particularly important for graduate roles, where the competition is often fiercer than a regular entry-level job. Even when the job description says they aren’t required, submitting a cover letter shows that you’re passionate enough about the role to go that extra mile and will help put you top of mind for employers above other grads! 

Why should you use cover letter templates?

Using cover letter templates is a great way to save time when you already have deadlines coming in from all directions in your final year. It allows you to spend less time than starting from scratch, leaving you free to apply for as many graduate roles as you wish!

While they still need to be tweaked for each role you’re applying for, having a template still saves time - and stress! - particularly when you’re applying for multiple roles at once.

How do you put together a template?

To get yourself started, you can use a template from our parent company SEEK, which helps outline what you should be putting in a cover letter and where. 

As a busy student or recent grad, you can even take it one step further! If you’re applying for lots of similar roles, it might be a good idea to write up a slightly more specific cover letter - following SEEK’s template - that you can use for multiple applications. 

This isn’t to say you should submit a cover letter without customising it for each role, but you might be able to make it a bit easier on yourself by pre-writing sections about key skills that you know each role you apply for will be looking for. 

What should you be customising for each role?

There are, of course, some things that have to be changed for each role that you should be aware of.

Address each employer personally

It’s time to ditch “to whom it may concern”: Mark Smith, the Managing Director of “people2people”, told SEEK that it’s an “impersonal and dated” greeting. Instead, address the hiring manager with their full name, and if you don't have that on hand, even "Dear hiring manager" or "Dear xxx team" will make a difference in helping you stand out!

Use keywords

While you can draft up a template with some key skills you think will be relevant across many of the graduate jobs you’ll be applying to, it’s a great idea to use keywords directly from the position description. This shows that you’ve read about the role and are likely to be a good match. 

Explain why you’re passionate about the role

The reason you’re passionate about a position is going to change from role to role.  So make it personal! Do you resonate with how the business started? Have you been following their business for a while? What is it that makes this specific role and specific workplace so important to you? As a graduate, enthusiasm and a willingness to learn are some of the top qualities that employers look for, so don’t be shy to share your passion!

At the end of the day, a template isn’t a ‘one and done’ solution -  you still need to take time out to write up a cover letter for each role. But at least this way, whether you save five or ten minutes, it still makes a difference. 

For more templates to get you started, visit SEEK or see our ultimate guide to writing a cover letter.