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Let me explain: overuse of I is very boring in cover letters and job applications. When you start every sentence with I… it gets very boring for the reader who will soon lose interest in your cover letter or job application.

The fact is that the reader, who may well be the prospective employer or the hiring manager, wants to read something that is easy to read, is interesting and flows well. When you write “I this…” or “I that…” as a lot of people do, its a sure way to lose the interest of your future employer.

It becomes almost like a list and reduces you to little more than a mere ‘bullet point’ and who wants to hire a bullet point?

So if I is very boring in cover letters what can you do to make your job applications more interesting?

Although you are writing about yourself, you are not limited to using ‘I’, you could mix things up a bit and use ‘me’ or ‘my’ by swapping your sentences around a bit. You could do even better by making sure you involve the reader by using ‘you’ and ‘your’ in your cover letter.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

Instead of writing: “I am an experienced service center manager…” you could try writing “My experience as a service center manager includes…”.

Instead of writing: “I am a qualified electrical engineer…” you could write “As a qualified electrical engineer I supervise…”

Instead of writing: “I am interested in applying for the job vacancy as advertised…” you could change it around so it reads: “Your job ad is so interesting that my application is enclosed…”

See how much more interesting you can make your cover letter? Although most letters should be kept quite short, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be interesting. And if the reader, who may be the hiring manager, finds it easier to read and more interesting than the other application letters received, guess what? You automatically become more interesting!

So you understand why I say that overuse of I is very boring in cover letters and job applications? The fact is that your cover letters can easily be better with only a little extra thought.

By: Peter Fisher

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