Customizing your cover letters

gobananas15 · Oct 26, 2010

Also, I don't think you can ever really know if your cover letter helped or not, so I personally don't think it could hurt to write one! You really only need to spend the time to draft up your first one, and after that it won't take much time at all to add or change a few things here and there depending on what you are applying to. That's how it has been for me at least =]

NightNurse876 · Oct 27, 2010

I agree Gobananas,

When I got my call for my interview I made sure I got the names of everyone I would meet and the correct spelling. I also personalized my cover letter for them and inserted the hospital's logo on the bottom of my cover letter and resume so that they would see the time I put into reseaching the hospital. I got a lot of "Wow, I've never seen anything like this" that day and I think that and my knowledge of what the hospital claimed to offer employees and the public and how I tied that into the type of nurse I am also helped and it really prepared me for my interview bc when writing my cover letter I did my research. But you want to do some kind of research for every where that you apply to. Anyone can PM me for a copy of my "resume portfolio" as I called it. I was lucky enough that at my University there was a resume writing workshop that was too amazing and I think that's part of why I got my job. Attention to deal shows them they type of person you can be at their hospital...now you better have that attention to detail permanently on bc when you sell yourself to them and they buy you...you dont want them having buyers remorse...LoL (that's knee slapper!) :hhmth:

annalynn.victoria · Dec 30, 2010

Hello! Would nightnurse or anyone else mind sending me a few examples of their cover letters?I just graduated nursing school this month and I have written a few cover letters but I have a feeling they are not that great. I do not know how to PM so PM me and I imagine that I will be able to figure out how to reply to you! Thank you so much in advance!!!

elizabethgrad09 · Dec 30, 2010

My cover letter has been mentioned by interviewers before, so I believe it is well worth it to write one. I also think the more personal the better (i.e. if you had clinicals there mention that).

hiddencatRN, BSN, RN · Dec 31, 2010

As of right now, the hardest part of applying is coming up with a customized cover letter for each job.
It involves:
Tracking down the name of the nurse recruiter
Finding out some info about the hospital online
Figuring out how to work that into the cover letter
Finding a way to tie my (non-existent) experience into the needs of the hospital
It takes me 45 minutes to an hour for each cover letter, and I'm (trying) to apply to every hospital in the area, plus many beyond the area.
How do other people handle this?

I used basically the same letter for every position I applied for and just altered it slightly to fit with the specific position and hospital. My basic template was:

Paragraph 1: Position I'm applying for, the fact that I'm licensed as an RN and a BSN graduate from a local university, some tidbit about the hospital and why I want to work there

Paragraph 2: About me as a new grad nurse, my GPA, my strengths, special experiences I've had in clinicals. This is the paragraph I change the least per cover letter.

Paragraph 3: Wrap up, why I am a good fit and why the job fits in with my future goals, feel free to contact etc.

I always proof read my letters carefully to make sure I've changed the hospital specific information appropriately, but once I got the main template down I don't spend a ton of time on individualizing it. Things I look for on a hospital website to include are magnet status, community served (is it the only Level 1 trauma center in the area? local community hospital?), whether it's a research or teaching facility, and if it's a new grad program I'm applying for is there anything unique about the program compared to others I've seen?

If you had a significant career before going in to nursing, I'd talk about how the skills you used there are applicable to nursing (management, work ethic, customer service, handling high pressure situations) etc.

But honestly, with the amount of applications a lot of places get, I don't think cover letters are always read so it never seemed worth it to craft a completely unique letter per application, especially as a new grad when I don't really have any specialized experience or skills anyway.