The Cover Letter Book

James Innes is the Founder and Chief Executive of The CV Centre-the UK's leading CV consultancy and is now widely considered to be one of the UK's leading careers experts. He regularly participates at recruitment fairs and conferences as a sought-after guest speaker, as well as being interviewed on TV and radio. The Cover Letter Book sits alongside James's other careers publishing which include the bestselling The Interview Book, The CV Book and The Interview Question and Answer Book - all published by Pearson.

Part 1: Laying the foundations

1 Why are cover letters so important?

2 Getting the basics right

Part 2: Job-hunting letters

3 Speculative letters: your foot in the door

4 Advert-response letters: a winning strategy

Part 3: Specialist cover letters

5 Letters of application for specialist sectors

Part 4: Digital considerations

6 Applying for jobs online

Part 5: The 15 most common cover letter mistakes

7 How to avoid them!

Part 6: Other job search letters

8 Application follow-up letters

9 Interview thank-you letters

10 Negotiating an offer

11 Requesting a reference

12 Resignation letters

13 Offer acceptance letters

14 Rejecting an offer

15 Accepting rejection

Part 7: Career development letters

16 Pay rise request letters

17 Promotion request letters

Part 8: Looking at the whole picture

18 Job hunting

19 CVs

20 LinkedIn

21 Interviews

Part 9: My five top tips to make your cover letter stand out

22 How to make your cover letter stand out!



Further reading and resources

Appendix A: 250 action verbs

Appendix B: 50 positive adjectives

Appendix C: 222 commonly misspelled words