How do I start a cover letter?

With a specific reason you are writing to this employer, not with 'I am writing to apply for the position of…' — the reader already knows which job you applied for. Name the role in passing and lead with the concrete overlap: the problem the posting describes and the closest thing you have actually done. Address a real person by name if the posting or the company site gives you one; 'Dear Hiring Manager' is a perfectly acceptable fallback, and 'To Whom It May Concern' reads as a form letter.

Do I still need a cover letter in 2026?

It depends on the employer and it is rarely wasted when the application has a field for it. Many large-volume employers barely read them, but small teams, hiring managers who post their own roles, career changers, and anyone whose resume raises an obvious question benefit enormously from three specific paragraphs. The practical rule: if the application asks for one, write one; if it is optional and you have anything to explain or any real reason you want this particular job, write one; if you would only produce a generic template, your effort is better spent tailoring the resume.

How to Write a Cover Letter: Structure, Openings, Closings

Q: How long should a cover letter be?

Well under one page — roughly 250 to 350 words in four short paragraphs. A cover letter is read in about the time it takes to decide whether to open the resume, so length works against you: the second half of a long letter is usually skimmed or skipped. If you cannot make your case in four paragraphs, the problem is almost always that you are summarizing your whole resume instead of picking the one thing that matters for this job.

A practical guide from the team behind PlainResume, the free resume builder.

The short answer: A cover letter is four short paragraphs and well under a page: why you're writing to this employer, one concrete piece of proof, how that proof applies to the problem they're hiring to solve, and a plain close. Skip "I am writing to apply for the position of" — they know which job you applied for. The whole letter fails or succeeds on one test: could it have been sent to a different company by changing the name?

Most cover letters are a prose remix of the resume, which is the one thing they should never be. The reader already has the resume attached. What they don't have is the answer to "why you, for this, right now" — and that answer takes four paragraphs, not a page and a half. (For what belongs in each document rather than how to write this one, see cover letter vs resume.)

The four-paragraph shape

Why this job, specifically. One or two sentences naming the role and the concrete overlap between what they need and what you've done.
The proof. One story with a result — not three, not a list.
The application. How that experience maps onto the problem in their posting, and anything your resume raises that deserves a sentence.
The close. One line, plainly confident.

That's roughly 250–350 words. A cover letter is read in about the time it takes to decide whether to open the resume, so the second half of a long one is usually skimmed. Length is not effort; specificity is.

The opening: delete the first sentence you wrote

✗ "I am writing to express my strong interest in the Operations Coordinator position at your company, which I found on your careers page."

✓ "Your posting says the ops team is drowning in manual order reconciliation. That's the job I spent my last eighteen months at Harbor Freight Logistics automating — down from six hours a week to about forty minutes."

The reader knows which job you applied for and where you found it; those words buy nothing. Lead with the overlap instead. Address a real person if the posting or the company site names one — "Dear Hiring Manager" is a fine fallback, and "To Whom It May Concern" announces a form letter.

The proof paragraph: one story, not a resume rerun

✗ "I have extensive experience in project management, stakeholder communication, budgeting, and process improvement, as detailed in my attached resume."

✓ "When our two regional teams merged, I owned the intake process nobody wanted: mapped both workflows, cut the approval steps from nine to four, and trained eleven people on the new one. Ticket age dropped by half and stayed there."

Pick the single most relevant thing you've done and tell it in three sentences with a result attached. The same show-don't-list rule that governs bullets governs this paragraph, and the verb choice matters here too. If a number exists, use it; if it doesn't, describe the change honestly rather than inventing a percentage.

Research the problem, not the company's press releases

The fastest way to sound tailored is to read the posting twice and name the actual pain it describes — the thing they wrote three bullets about is the thing keeping someone up at night. Fifteen minutes on their site, product, or recent announcements can surface one specific detail worth a clause. Compliments are not research: "I have long admired your commitment to innovation" is what a form letter says. This is the letter version of tailoring to the posting.

The close, and the sentence that earns its space

End plainly: "I'd welcome the chance to talk about how I could help with the reconciliation backlog. I'm available any afternoon this week." No grovelling, no "thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule." And if your resume raises an obvious question — a gap, a career change, a relocation — one calm sentence here is worth more than the entire rest of the letter, because it stops the reader from having to guess.

Format and sending

Match the resume's font and header block so the two documents look like a set, keep it to one page with normal margins, and save as PDF unless the posting says otherwise. Pasting into an email instead of attaching? The letter becomes the body — see what to write when you email a resume. Proofread the company name last; a mismatched name is the one typo that guarantees a no.

Write it in the browser, free. PlainResume's cover letter builder gives you the same clean formatting as the resume, with a live preview and PDF download. No sign-up, no paywall — everything stays on your device.

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Frequently asked questions

How long should a cover letter be?

250–350 words, four short paragraphs, well under a page. If it won't fit, you're summarizing your resume instead of choosing the one thing that matters.

How do I start it?

With the overlap between their problem and your experience — not "I am writing to apply for." Use a real name if you can find one; "Dear Hiring Manager" is fine.

Do I still need one?

Write one whenever the application asks, and whenever you have something real to explain or a genuine reason for wanting this job. If it would only be a template, tailor the resume instead.