So, you’ve come across an interesting job posted. Being that much eager to work, you rush to your computer and apply for it to try your luck. But oops, you are not the only one who has seen that job advert. So you will be amazed to find more than ten of you in an interview. Out of those ten, one gets the job and the rest of you go home to try your luck again.
Here is the secret! - Some employers do not post jobs online. So if you take advantage of that and apply for those jobs, you will find yourself alone in an interview.
But the question remains: “How do I apply?" Well, a letter of interest is the only solution.
What is a Letter of Interest?
An interest letter or cover letter is typically written for a job application. It is often found to be coupled with a CV or Curriculum Vitae of the job applicant. Letters of Interest serve as your first written contact with a manager or institution about an offer. These letters can sometimes be required and will then serve as cover letters that you submit along with a resume. Other times they are unsolicited proposals and sent to organizations that are not hiring or offering an appropriate job posting at the time.
Letters of interest are applicable to other situations as well: when applying for an internship, a promotion, a program of study. Companies write letters of interest to lease commercial space or in response to an invitation.
This is a different style of writing than you may be used to! It is persuasive, personal, semi-formulaic, concise. A cover letter builds the bridge between you and a potential opportunity – it is how you show authentic fit and interest in a position, company and industry.
What’s the Difference between Cover Letter and the Letter of Interest?
A letter of interest might contain similar things to a cover letter but they are very different.
Typically, a cover letter is sent with a resume, and is often used when applying for a posted job opening. On the other hand, a letter of interest serves as a means for expressing an interest in working for a company, regardless of whether it’s an open or not an open position. Think of it as a warm-up gesture before filing a complete application.
In the letter of interest, you basically lay out your background, qualifications and achievements in brief, all while informing them of your interest in finding a place with their organization.
When Do I Write a Letter of Interest?
Letters of interest apply to many areas, both business and personal.
- In a job-hunt scenario, you may be interested in working for a company that isn’t yet hiring or doesn’t have an available position for which you feel you are qualified. In this case, your letter of interest to the manager offers yourself as an option for when a slot does open up. This is then an Employment Letter Of Intent where you express your willingness to work there while stating your qualifications and why you will be a good fit for the company.
- If you’ve been working in a company for a while and feel qualified for a promotion, Promotion Letter Templates will help you professionally broach the subject.
- Applying for college programs or internships will often require a letter of interest as a cover letter or personal statement. This can be solicited or unsolicited and will be submitted along with a resume.
- The owner of a commercial property will receive letters of interest from companies interested in leasing commercial space in that property.
In all these cases, the letter of interest is meant to express a willingness to enter into a contract relationship. If you have no experience drafting such letters, our samples of actual letters will help.
How Should I Write an Interest Letter?
Writing an interest letter is a step by step job. It is not simple at all to write an interest letter. If you are writing it for college application or job application purpose, you need to make sure that the letter has been written in a professional way, so that it can create a good impression on the person who shall read it. Getting hired or receiving calls to join interviews would become simple when you have a perfectly crafted interest letter.
Framing before you begin to write:
- What it is: your interest and experiences as they relate to the position and skills that you can contribute.
- What it is not: restating resume bullet points, introducing brand new material not on your resume.
To write such letters, you need to start the research process. Find tips and tricks for writing brilliant letters of interest. Homework is the most important thing, and when you are well versed with some techniques with writing such letters, you shall be able to craft a Letter of Interest Format. If you still find difficulties in writing such letters, find some online samples. Plenty of samples are available, and they can be used for writing seamless interest letters.
To make it great, you’ll need to first reflect on your own skill set, if this is challenging, visit a CPD career counselor and consider doing a transferable skills inventory. After taking a good look at yourself, take a good look at the position – highlight those parts that interest you and the skills you have. The focus of the letter should be on WHY you are interested HOW you have fit and WHAT you have to give/provide them (and less about what you have to gain).
Tips for Success:
- Use a brand new word document or a Google doc each time you write – just like a new piece of paper – you are writing authentically to a new audience in each letter.
- It should be one page.
- Never be negative! “
I don’t have any experience, but I’m very enthusiastic.” This may be the case, AND you should just be conveying the positive part! Anywhere you see a ‘but’ change it to an ‘and’. - Vary your sentence structure so not every sentence begins with “I” to create a more interesting read.
How do I Write a Persuasive Letter of Interest?
Let’s have a look at some sneaky techniques you can use to write that winning warm-up gesture before filling a complete job application. Like all correspondences you send to any potential employer, a letter of interest will only work best when it’s done right:
- Keep your tone professional - since this is a business letter, it deserves to be written professionally. It does not have to be excessively formal. However, you have to ensure that your writing sounds respectful and dignified.
- Address your letter to some specific person - don’t just send it to a company and hope that somebody will take notice. By doing this you will some time lose your opportunity. You can’t expect employers to take seriously if you don’t even have the initiative to find out who the contact person should be. To achieve anything, you need hard work. If you don’t know much about the company, do a research online and acquire all the information about the company. Doing this will not only help you to know their contact information, but it will also help you to know their employees, their knowledge, skills and abilities which will assist you to best them.
- Give sufficient details about yourself - you obviously want the job with that target company. So, your letter should speak on your behalf and convince them to hire you. To achieve this, you need to make sure that you throw in enough details to let them know why you are qualified for the position.
- Avoid mistakes in the letter - once they open your letter, you will be evaluated. So, if your letter has mechanical errors, your viability as a candidate takes an immediate hit. Ensure you turn in a clean letter by running it through proofreading software.
- Reveal your knowledge about the company - since you have shown your interest in working with them, it assumed that you know something about the company. Therefore, you should detail why you pick them.
And finally, the letter should be relatively short. It should be no longer than three paragraphs. Don’t expect the employers to be ready to take up much time reading your letter.
What are the Different Types of Interest Letters?
Letters of interest can be of different types. Generally, people need to write such letters when it comes to applying for a job. Along with a resume, it is important to send a letter of interest to the employer. Letter of interest will state or express your interest for the job, and reasons why you are the best candidate for the job. It will definitely be self promoting, but the nature of writing should be simplistic. Too much promotion or exaggeration creates poor impressions and that does not look professional too.
Thus, you need to be careful with your choice of words and style of writing for interest letters. Students also have to write interest letters quite commonly. If you want to pursue higher studies, you have to send a letter of interest to your preferred university. If you want to take part in a special project or extra academic curriculum, you need to send a letter of interest to the college authority.
So, we’ve gathered here a list of examples of different types of interest letters - enjoy!
Letter Of Interest Samples
College Letter of Interest
|
Your Name Date of writing Name Dear Mr./Ms.: Union Carbide's extensive list of products and wide range of sales offices are attractive to me as I seek a position in the area of technical sales. My background encompasses both technical and sales abilities. You will notice in my resume that I worked as a summer intern for the city of Philadelphia and assisted a city engineer in the field of wastewater treatment. The UNOX System that you have developed is a method with which I am familiar, both from an experiential and a research capacity. In my summer job, the process we used involved utilizing oxygen gas in the wastewater treatment process. For various course projects, I had the opportunity to conduct in-depth research on a filtering process that supports wastewater treatment. As a supplement to my technical skills, I have developed capabilities in the field of sales. My position with the ACME Sales Company netted a $20,000 profit this past summer and the honor of being named Number 1 Salesperson in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. In addition, I was privileged to be the co-author, with my marketing professor, of an article entitled "The Art of The Sales Deal." This combination of practical and research experiences can be applied to the distribution of the growing number of consumer products of Union Carbide. I would welcome the opportunity to review my qualifications and background in greater detail and will call you next week about the possibility of such a meeting. I plan on being in South Charleston the week of (date) and hope we can arrange a meeting at your convenience during this period. Thank you for your attention. Sincerely, |
Manager Employment Letter of Interest
|
James Daniels Carl Harris, 101 Made Up Street, Birmingham, B1 1AA
T: 0044 121 638 0026, E: [email protected] Mathew Gordon
Hiring Manager
Dayjob Ltd
120 Vyse Street
Birmingham
B18 6NF
20th March 2012
Dear Mr Gordon
I am writing to express my interest in your vacancy for a Operations Manager, which was advertised yesterday on the www.dayjob.com website.
As an experienced operations manager who possesses extensive IT knowledge, strong leadership skills and superb relationship management abilities, I feel I would be an ideal candidate for the position.
A review of my attached CV will quickly confirm to you that I am able to design and implement process improvements aimed at streamlining activities whilst at the same time driving up performance and quality. However what my resume may not show is my ability to provide motivational and inspirational leadership to supervisors and key staff, thereby helping them to develop themselves and their departments further.
My experience to date has equipped me with a multitude of relevant skills in not only IT hardware and software platforms, but also in running core areas of any operational setup. I consider myself to be a technically minded individual who is capable of working in a fast paced and ever changing environment and who is eager to learn about the latest platforms and technologies as they emerge. As a prolific troubleshooter, I am comfortable with tackling problem right through from detection to resolution. My core strengths include but are not limited to:
I look forward to the opportunity to meet with you to learn more about your firm, its plans and goals, and also to discuss how I might contribute to its continued success.
Yours sincerely
James Daniels
September 20, 2010
|
Business Letter of Interest
|
To Rose Esther, Operations Head Arty Paper Works Inc. 18 Woody Street, Annapolis. Date: 25th April 2014 Subject: Proposal to ally with Xpression Greetings Inc. as a business ally. Dear Rose, Warm Greetings! Hope this letter finds you in the best of health and spirits. I wanted to bring to your attention that I have got the reference of your business from Blaze Crystalware Inc. as a supplier of paper based packing materials. I was highly impressed with what I heard in your favour and now I would like to take this ahead as alliance between Arty Paper Works Inc. and Xpressions Greetings Inc. Basically we are the manufacturers of greeting cards which are available in almost all shapes and sizes in most of the gift stores of Annapolis. At the moment we are planning to outsource the work of envelope making to an ally. The demand of our greetings has gradually gone up and we want to completely focus on supplying more and more greetings to the industry. We see you as one of our alliances in the future if we get suitable quotations from your for various size of envelopes and the terms of trade are reasonable and mutually decided. If you wish to take this ahead then send us two – three meeting slots from your calendar for the coming week and we can finalize a mutually convenient one. Hope to work with you as an ally in future. Thanks and regards, Pammy Grace Operations Head Xpressions Greetings Inc. |
Student Letter of Interest
|
Dear Mr. Green, I will receive my Bachelors of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this May. A recruiter from Dallas Polymer gave a presentation to engineers in my graduating class, and I was very impressed. I am interested in applying for the production engineer position in your manufacturing department.
As one of my engineering electives, I took Polymer Science and finished at the top of my class. I am fascinated by the integration of engineering and chemistry used in your cutting-edge plastics production. Last summer, I completed an internship with Plas-Tech Incorporated as a process engineer. I developed a solid foundation in the polymer industry and an understanding of how to optimize the profitability of capital projects. I look forward to hearing more about this opportunity at Dallas Polymer. I am excited to pursue a career with your company and would like to demonstrate how I am an ideal candidate for this position. Please call me at (617) 555-3333 or email me at [email protected] Thank you for your consideration. Best, Ellen Jones |
Letter of Interest for Job Promotion
|
Gambit Magazine 222 St. Charles St. New Orleans, LA 70115 Erin Brown 890 Prytania St. New Orleans, LA 70114 Dear Mr. Fletcher, I’m writing to express my interest in the newly available assistant editor-in-chief position. I’ve been successfully editing Gambit articles and ads for the past eight years, and I have consistently met my production deadlines. I’m interested in taking on more of a leadership role with the magazine and believe that my editing experience will help me excel in the assistant position. I feel that I will not only be of great use to the editor-in-chief, but also be a very successful leader to my coworkers. I am confident that I would be a reliable and knowledgeable mentor for experienced employees and new hires alike. I would look forward to editing the magazine’s feature stories and larger ads, helping to format the magazine’s layout, and training new editors. This position requires someone who has extraordinary time management skills, and I believe I have proven that I do, especially since taking on some of the responsibilities that the previous assistant editor handled. I plan to use those skills to continue to meet my deadlines while devoting time to working with new editors. I feel that I would be perfect for this position because I am already very familiar with the editorial process and have received high praise as one of the more senior staff members at Gambit. I love my city, and I’m very dedicated to this magazine. I’ve very much enjoyed developing my editing skills with Gambit and wish to continue to grow with the company as an assistant editor in-chief in the years to come. Sincerely, Erin Brown |