Most cover letters are skipped — because most restate the resume. A good one does the single job the resume cannot: connect your evidence to this company, this role, right now.
1) Hook: the role, plus the one credential that fits it best. 2) Proof: one story with numbers — your best project or internship result, told in 3 sentences. 3) Why them: something specific about the company that is not flattery. 4) Ask: interview availability, thanks, signature. 250 words maximum.
"Dear Hiring Team — I'm applying for the SDE internship (ID 4821). As a third-year CSE student, I built a placement portal now used by 300+ students at my college, using the same React + Node stack your team ships with. Debugging its crash-on-registration bug taught me more about race conditions than any course. I follow [Company]'s engineering blog — the post on migrating to event-driven jobs mirrors a queue problem I solved in my project. I'd welcome the chance to discuss it. Available June–August, resume attached."
Cold emails to hiring managers are shorter: subject line "SDE Intern — built portal used by 300+ students", two-sentence intro, three-bullet proof, one-line ask. Attach the resume, link the GitHub. Politeness plus brevity plus proof.
Restating the resume line-by-line; "Dear Sir/Madam" when the manager's name is on LinkedIn; generic flattery ("your esteemed organization"); exceeding one page; and typos — in a document whose entire purpose is demonstrating care.
Inconsistently — but when they are read, they are tie-breakers. Since strong ones are rare, a good letter disproportionately stands out.
200–250 words, 4 paragraphs, always under one page.
The structure travels; paragraph 3 (why them) must be rewritten per company — that paragraph is the letter's entire point.
Free, no watermark, no credit card — used by students before every application.
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