How to write a cover letter: format, parts and a full example

How to write a cover letter: the six parts, the format for a PDF, an email or a form box, a worked example, and what 390 real application forms ask for.

A cover letter answers the one question your resume cannot: why you, for this role, at this company. The resume proves what you have done. The letter connects it to what this recruiter needs, in your own voice, with arguments no other candidate could copy.

Plenty of candidates skip it, or send the same one to every posting, so a letter written for one company stands out. This guide starts with what real application forms ask for, then gives you the parts, the format, a complete worked example, a template to fill in, and what changes when you have a referral, are moving, or are applying for a manager, part-time or nonprofit role.

Do you still need a cover letter? What 390 application forms say

Most guides answer this with a recruiter survey run by a resume-builder company. We counted instead. On 1 October 2026 we pulled 390 job postings from the public Greenhouse boards of 50 companies (up to eight postings each, picked at random) and read the application form behind each one.

Three things stood out:

• Optional is the default. 305 forms had a cover letter field marked optional. Only 18 required one, and they clustered at media and nonprofit employers (Vox Media, the ACLU, Wikimedia, Khan Academy). Five companies had no field on any posting we sampled: Figma, Datadog, Wise, Anthropic and Toast.
• The posting rarely tells you. Only 5 of the 390 posting texts said anything about a cover letter. We also checked 64 postings on Lever boards, and none did. If you wait for the ad to ask, you will almost never write one, even though the form usually has a slot for it.
• Every field takes pasted text. All 323 forms with a cover letter field accepted either a file upload or text typed straight into a box. That changes the format, as the parts section below shows.

So when the field is optional, fill it. It takes twenty minutes, and it is the one part of the form where you get to argue rather than list. Our sample leans toward US tech companies, so treat the numbers as a picture of that market, not of every employer. Anyone can repeat the count, because the endpoint we read is public: boards-api.greenhouse.io/v1/boards/<company>/jobs/<id>?questions=true lists every field on a posting's form and whether it is required.

What a cover letter is really for

A cover letter answers three questions in the recruiter's mind:

1. Why this company in particular?
2. Why does this role fit your background?
3. What are you going to bring, concretely?

If your letter answers none of these, it adds nothing to your resume. If it answers all three, it can tip the balance.

What it must not do is paraphrase your resume. Both documents usually land in the same candidate record, often inside the same screening software, and a recruiter who has just scanned your experience gains nothing from reading it again in full sentences. The letter picks one or two proofs and explains why they matter here.

Cover letter vs resume: what goes where

The two documents answer different questions, and a recruiter reads them in a fixed order: resume first, letter second, if at all. So the division of labour is simple.

• The resume lists. Every job, every date, every skill, with no argument attached. It is the document that gets searched and filtered.
• The letter argues. It picks one or two lines from the resume and explains why they matter for this role. "Your move upmarket is what I spent three years doing" fits no resume field.
• Nothing lives in only one of them. A number in the letter points back to a line in the resume. A story told only in the letter is one the recruiter cannot check once the letter is out of sight.

Short on time? Update the resume and send a four-sentence letter. A tailored resume with no letter beats a generic letter next to an untouched resume, because the resume is the document that gets read first.

The parts of a cover letter

A conventional cover letter has six parts. Which ones you keep depends on how you send it.

A few rules for the parts that trip people up:

• The header, in a PDF. Your name on the first line, then phone, email and city. No street address: nobody will post you anything. A blank line, the date, then the employer's name and address, with the recruiter's name above the company when you have it. Use the same name and contact block as your resume, so the two files read as one application.
• The greeting. Use a name when you can find one: the posting, the company's team page or LinkedIn usually gives you the hiring manager. If you cannot, "Dear Hiring Manager" or "Dear [Team name] team" is fine. "To Whom It May Concern" reads as a letter sent to nobody in particular.
• The UK convention. If you open with a name, close with "Yours sincerely". If you open with "Dear Sir or Madam", close with "Yours faithfully". In the US, "Sincerely" or "Best regards" covers both cases.
• The date and addresses. They belong to a printed business letter. In an uploaded PDF they do no harm. Pasted into a form, they are clutter above your first real sentence.

How to write the body: three movements

The opening, body and closing carry the whole argument. The most effective order has three movements, often summed up as "you, me, us":

• The opening (you) starts with the company, not with yourself. One or two sentences show you understand its context, its plans or a specific challenge.
• The body (me) gives two or three arguments proving you can do the job, with numbers where you have them.
• The close (us) places you in the role and proposes an interview, without the pompous sign-off.

A complete example, annotated

Here is a full letter built on that structure. It runs to 130 words, which is all it takes. Sarah is applying for a Customer Success Manager role at a project-management SaaS moving upmarket.

Notice what each part is doing. The opening proves research with one specific observation, and there is no "I am writing to apply". The proof paragraph gives two numbers and one legacy, all tied to the exact challenge the company faces. The close proposes a concrete next step instead of "I look forward to hearing from you".

The template to fill in

Same structure, reduced to what you write in each block:

What you can keep from one letter to the next

A generic cover letter template is only a problem when it is sent as is. Reused with care, it saves most of the twenty minutes. Keep the structure, the sign-off, your contact block, and one proof sentence that fits every role you apply for (the renewal figure in the example works for any customer-facing job). Rewrite every time: the first sentence, the choice of the second proof, and the close.

The test takes ten seconds. Search the finished letter for the company name. It should appear in the opening and again in the close, each time attached to something only that company does. If you could swap the name for a competitor's without touching another word, you have reused too much.

When the form asks "Why us?" instead

Some employers skip the letter and ask its first question directly. In our sample, 39 of the 390 forms had a free-text box such as "Why do you want to join Figma?", "Why Anthropic?" or "Why are you interested in working for Code for America?". Eighteen of those 39 had no cover letter field at all. The question is the letter.

Treat that box as your opening and proof paragraphs, without the greeting and sign-off. Start with the specific thing about the company, then the one proof that connects you to it. Do not paste a full letter into it, and do not answer with two lines either. If the same form also has an optional cover letter field, use the letter for the second and third proofs rather than repeating your "why".

The same structure in six situations

Lists of "best cover letter examples" usually vary the tone: witty, creative, enthusiastic. What really changes between a good letter and a good letter for your situation is one paragraph, and sometimes the form around it. To see which of these questions the form already asks, we read the application forms behind 280 more postings, on 35 public Greenhouse boards, on 4 October 2026. This is a second sample, separate from the 390 forms above.

With a referral

Put the name in the first sentence, before anything about yourself: "Priya Shah, who leads your onboarding team, suggested I apply for this role." Then say what she told you about the job, because that is your research. Ask the person first, and check they know which posting you mean.

Then look at the form. In our sample, 132 of the 280 forms asked how you heard about the job, in one wording or another; 32 of them offered a "Referral" option, and 8 (all at Brex) had a free-text field for the employee's name. If the form asks, answer there too. A referral mentioned only in an optional cover letter is one the recruiter has to read the letter to find.

When you are relocating

Say where you are and when you will be there, in one sentence of the opening or the close: "I am moving to Austin in January and can interview on site from the 12th." Do not explain why you are moving, and do not raise relocation assistance in the letter.

50 of the 280 forms asked directly ("Do you currently live in, or plan to relocate to, the specified location?", "Are you open to relocation for this role?"), and 49 of those made the answer required. The letter's job is to make that answer read as a plan rather than a maybe.

For a manager role

Your proof paragraph changes unit. A manager's numbers are team size, budget, how many of the people you managed stayed, and what the team shipped, rather than what you did with your own hands. "I managed a team of nine, grew it to fourteen, and lost one person in two years" tells the recruiter more than any list of leadership qualities. For a first management role, give the numbers you do have: the people you trained, the project you led without the title.

For a part-time job

The recruiter's unspoken questions are whether you will show up and whether you will stay. Answer both in the close: your availability by day and hour, and the reason part-time suits you, stated plainly ("I am finishing a degree in the evenings until June 2027"). A part-time letter is usually shorter than the example above, because the proof paragraph needs one example, not two.

For a nonprofit

Nonprofits and media companies were the employers most likely to require a letter in our first sample (the ACLU, Wikimedia, Khan Academy). They read it for the one thing the resume cannot show: whether you know what the organisation does and have done anything about it. Name a programme, a report or a campaign of theirs, not the mission statement. Volunteering counts as proof here, under the same rule as paid work: an outcome or a number, not a sentiment.

With a portfolio

Do not describe the portfolio. Point to one piece in it and say what it did: "The checkout redesign on page two of my portfolio cut drop-off by 18%." Put the link in your signature as a plain URL, and expect to type it again: 181 of the 280 forms had a field for a website, portfolio or GitHub URL, required on only 19. Fill it even when it is optional. The letter is the argument; the field is where the link lives.

Bullet points in a cover letter

A letter is prose, but three or four numbers in a row read better as a list than as a paragraph of commas. One list, three or four bullets, one line each, a figure in each, and prose on both sides of it. A letter that is mostly bullets is a resume with a greeting.

The proof paragraph from the example above, as bullets:

At Klara Software, during our own move to larger customers, I:

• rebuilt onboarding around a 30-day activation plan, cutting time-to-first-value from six weeks to three;
• raised renewals on a 60-account portfolio from 82% to 91% in a year;
• wrote the playbooks the two CSMs hired after me still work from.

Two cautions. In a pasted letter the formatting goes: all 230 cover letter fields in our census accepted typed text as well as a file, and a text box keeps your line breaks but not bold or automatic bullets, so start each line with a hyphen you typed yourself. And bullets cut the connective tissue, so the sentence after the list has to say why those three things matter to this company.

Phrasing that works (and phrasing that does not)

The pattern behind every weak sentence is the same: a claim with no evidence, or a formula the recruiter has read a hundred times today. The fix is the same too. Replace the adjective with the fact that earned it.

The same test applies to "I have always wanted to work for you" (replace it with the specific, verifiable reason) and to any sentence that tells the recruiter something they already know.

Cover letter format: layout, file and sending

The layout rules are short, and most ranking guides agree on them:

• Length. One page is the ceiling. Six of the fourteen ranking guides we read say 250 to 400 words. The example above does the whole job in 130, and past 400 you are usually paraphrasing your resume again.
• Font. A plain font such as Arial, Calibri or Georgia at 10 to 12 pt, the same one your resume uses, so the two read as a set. Lists of the "best cover letter fonts" matter less than they suggest: every one of the 230 cover letter fields in our census also accepted pasted text, and in a text box your font does not exist.
• Spacing. Single, not double. Double spacing is a drafting convention, not a letter one, and on a one-page letter it halves what you can say. 1.15 is the most you need, with a blank line between paragraphs and margins of about 2.5 cm (1 inch).
• File. Send a PDF unless the posting asks for something else, and name it like your resume: CoverLetter-FirstName-LastName.pdf. Both files land in the same application record.

How you send it changes the format more than any of those rules:

Through an application form. If the form has a text box, paste the letter from the greeting down and drop the header, date and addresses. If it only takes a file, upload the PDF with the full header.

By email. Put the letter in the body. A short letter as an attachment is one click the recruiter may never make. Name the role and, if there is one, the posting reference in the subject line: "Application: Customer Success Manager (ref. 2318), Sarah Bennett". A recruiter sorting fifty emails should not have to open yours to know what it is.

With an AI draft. More than half the guides we read tell you to draft with an AI tool and then rewrite. Read the form before you do. In our sample, 14 of the 50 companies put a question or a policy about AI on the application form. Airbnb's is the strictest we read: you agree that your materials "represent my own original work and were completed without the use of AI Tools", unless Airbnb expressly permits them. Where you sign that, write the letter yourself.

Dos and don'ts

Most letters fail on the same five points, and each has a fix that takes one sentence:

Typos and a stiff, dated tone finish the list. On a 130-word letter both are impossible to miss, so read it aloud once before you send it. Fixing nothing more than the personalisation and the length is often enough to get back to the top of the pile. And a letter that names a specific challenge sets up the interview: the recruiter will ask you about it, so prepare to develop that story out loud.

Writing your letter with HiredFolio

HiredFolio writes a first draft from a job you have saved in your tracker. It reads the job description, which it needs, and the resume you pick: your summary, skills and experience lines. You choose a length (short is 900 to 1,300 characters, a little longer than the 744-character example above), one of six tones, and English or French. It is told not to invent experience, employers, degrees or numbers, so a proof missing from your resume will be missing from the letter.

The draft comes back as plain paragraphs. The generator is not told to add a header, date, greeting or sign-off, so check the top and bottom of the letter before you send it. You can edit it, copy it, or download it as PDF, Word or plain text. If the form asks you to attest that you wrote your materials without AI, skip the draft for that application.

Try HiredFolio for free

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