What is the ideal cover letter design?
[Click here to directly go to the complete cover letter design template]
If you are a job seeker and looking to create a cover letter for applying for a job, this question may have crossed your mind.
According to studies, a corporate job opening gets roughly 250 resumes. And from that, only 4-6 candidates get shortlisted for an interview. (Glassdoor)
That means the recruiters and hiring managers do a lot of screening before selecting the perfect candidates.
One of these scanning parameters involves how well you design and format the cover letter template and present it to the hiring manager.
The cover letter design you choose may make or break your chance of standing out from the crowd and leave a lasting impression on the hiring manager.
Hiration cover letter builder has dozens of professional cover letter templates that you can customize and create your own professional cover letter.
Keep reading to get 10+ simple cover letter samples, or go to Hiration Cover Letter Builder to directly use the basic cover letter templates to create a professional cover letter.
Why is Cover Letter Design Important?
Much like a professional resume, the cover letter is the first point of contact between the candidate and the hiring manager. Recruiters only get 7.4 seconds to review a candidate’s application.
That means you need to create an impression on the hiring manager quickly.
One of the best ways to do it is by providing them with something that will make them pause and hold for a second.
And that is where a cover letter design shines.
Not only that, a cover letter template for resume will present you as a competent professional in front of the recruiter.
Elements of a Perfect Cover Letter Design
Optimize the Cover Letter Header
The cover letter header is the first thing a hiring manager notices in your job cover letter template.
Make sure to put the most essential information such as your name, contact information, residential location, etc., on the cover letter header section.
Not only that, you need to change the font size of the cover letter header to optimize the cover letter design.
- The Cover letter title font should be between 16-18 points.
- The contact, information, and residential location will go below the title.
- Use the job title you are applying for or your current designation as the resume headline.
- You can tweak the color scheme of the cover letter design to give a glimpse of your personality in the cover letter.
- Ensure to include a professional email address on the cover letter header. Such as johndoe@gmail.com. Not like john.doejon123@gmail.com.
Pro Tip: Be super specific while writing the cover letter header. For example: If you are a software developer, don’t just write “Software Developer” on the headline. Use more specific job titles, such as “Front-End Software Developer” or “full-Stack Software Developer” to give the hiring manager more context.
Think About the Color Scheme
The color you use on your cover letter template for resume can make or break your chance of getting an interview.
It is an absolute no-no to use any type of color in the cover letter’s main body. But you can use colors to accent essential sections. For example, You can include color on the title, the contact information section, and the footer.
However, you have to remember that the use of color also depends on the industry. For example, **for a technical job, it is better not to use any color rather than traditional black and white in the template for cover letter. But for a non-technical job, you can use accent colors in your resume. **
But limit the use of color to 3 colors on a resume. As more color in the job cover letter template will make it unprofessional and difficult to read.
Using Picture on Cover Letter
Putting your picture on the cover letter is considered unprofessional. It also does not go well with the cover letter design. Include a photo on the resume only if there is a requirement for a photo.
If you wish to include a photo, use a personal logo in the cover letter. It not only adds a personal touch to your cover letter but also makes the hiring manager pause and hold to read your cover letter.
Consistency With the Resume
Cover letters are meaningless without a resume. That’s why you need to make sure that the design principles are exactly the same for both the cover letter and the resume and cover letter template. For instance:
- The cover letter and resume should use the same fonts.
- Accent colors in the cover letter and resume must be similar.
With the Hiration Resume Builder Tool, you can easily pick out resume templates and complementary cover letter templates to ensure design uniformity across the board.
Tips for Designing a Cover Letter
While a good cover letter template will help you grab the hiring manager’s attention, the cover letter content is what’s going to sell your expertise to the hiring managers.
Keep the Cover Letter Texts Short and Concise
It is difficult to read long, complicated sentences in a cover letter. Always make sure to keep the cover letter short and easy to read. And have plenty of whitespaces to improve readability.
Customize Your Cover Letter for Each Organization
Not customizing the cover letter for each job is the biggest mistake a job-seeker makes.
The requirements for each job are different. And a generic cover letter will not make the desired impact on the hiring managers.
Instead, research about the company, read their about us page, understand their mission and vision and then write the cover letter while aligning company values with your own skills and values.
Format the Cover Letter Professionally
While designing a cover letter, you need to make sure that the cover letter is formatted correctly.
Letter Lenght
The cover letter should not stretch beyond one page. Ideally, the word count of a cover letter should be between** 300-500 words.**
Letter Font
It’s essential to use a simple yet professional font while writing your cover letter to make the cover letter design more appealing.
Most companies use an applicant tracking system to sort applicants. And these ATS systems work best with a simple & professional font.
Best fonts for cover letters:
- Ariel
- Calibri
- Times New Roman
- Verdana
- Roboto
Margins
Your cover letter should have a 1” margin on each side. However, if you are having trouble fitting your cover letter within one page, you can reduce the margins to ½” or ¾,” but not more than that.
If you still can not fit the cover letter within one page, you need to cut back some unnecessary information from the cover letter.
Whitespaces
Not only the content but whitespace is also an essential part of a cover letter. It makes the cover letter design more appealing and improves readability.
Ensure that there is a minimum of 1 - 1.15 points line spacing between each sentence and proper space between salutation, each paragraph, and after the closing.
Our Professional Cover Letter Designs
Our cover letter designs are for professionals who want high-quality ATS-friendly professional cover letter templates at an affordable price.
These cover letter templates use perfect iconography and other minimalistic design elements to give them a professional look.
We have created these cover letter format templates by following the industry standard. That means the hiring managers are familiar with our format, and it will also go well with the Applicant tracking systems.
Modern Teal Cover Letter Design
The modern teal cover letter design provides you with a simplistic and minimal-looking cover letter with a trendy teal color. This elegant blue-green teal color cover letter template speaks for your professionalism.
Key Features :
- ATS Friendly: The Modern Teal CL template is a premium ATS compliant template on the Hiration Cover Letter Builder tool
- Structure: It is a two-column cover letter template and perfectly goes with the Modern Teal resume template in Hiration Resume Builder tool.
- Color Scheme: With the elegant teal color combined with traditional black and white, it gives you a professional vibe. However, you can easily change the accent color to your liking from the Hiraiton cover letter builder tool.
Professional Blue Cover Letter Design
The professional blue cover letter template is a two-column cover letter design with complementary colors on each column which helps your cover letter get noticed by the hiring manager.
Key Features :
- ATS Compliance: Similar to our other cover letter designs, the professional blue cover letter template is also ATS-friendly & premium cover letter template.
- Structure: This is a two-column cover letter design template with the main column occupying two-third of the cover letter. The left column consists of the candidate’s details such as name, contact information, and residential location. The right column contains the main cover letter body.
- Color Scheme: The left side of the cover letter is dark blue. And the texts are white overlays.
Miami Cover Letter Design
This shamrock-colored professional resume is two column minimal resume. Much like the professional blue cover letter template, it also has complementary colors on each column.
Key Features :
- ATS-Friendly: The Miami cover letter template is a premium & ATS-friendly template
- Structure: The left column consists of the cover letter title & candidate’s contact information. The right column contains the main cover letter content.
- Color Scheme: The background of the left column is plain white, and the background of the right column is shamrock color with black overlay texts.
Global Citizen Green Cover Letter Template
The global citizen green cover letter template has a minimal presentation with a dark green heading and an aesthetic design. It is best for entry-level and mid-level professionals.
Key Features :
- Premium: This is a premium cover letter template designed to pass the ATS tests.
- Structure: It is a single-column cover letter design with only two sections: a header and a body.
- Color Scheme: This cover letter’s header background is deep bottle green, which gives the cover letter a mature look.
California Cover Letter Design
The California cover letter design is one of the most popular cover letter designs of Hiration. It gives a blend of orange and pink color to give the cover letter a unique look. Not only that, You can easily change the primary and secondary colors to your liking and completely customize the cover letter.
Key Features :
- ATS-Compliance: The California cover letter design is an ATS-friendly premium cover letter design.
- Structure: It is a double-column cover letter template where the title & headline is on the cover letter’s top. All the contact information, email id, and residential location go to the left column with orange-pink gradient texts. The cover letter's main content is on the right column with normal black texts.
- Color Scheme: The primary color combinations are orange and pink gradients. But you can easily change the color combination to your liking from the Hiration Cover Letter tool.
Uniform Brown Cover Letter Template
Uniform Brown cover letter design is a super-minimal single-column resume template. This cover letter design is best for professionals who prefer simplified designs with minimum use of colors.
Key Features :
- Premium: This is a premium cover letter design that is highly ATS-compliant.
- Structure: This is a single-column cover letter template with a minimalistic heading design.
- Color Scheme: The undertone brown color with minimal dotted separates gives the cover letter an earthy feel while also makes the document highly professional.
Material Color Cover Letter Design
This cover letter color is inspired by Google's material color theme and provides you with ample amounts of whitespaces. It makes the cover letter highly ATS-friendly and improves readability.
Key Features :
- Premium: Material color cover letter template is a premium cover letter design.
- Structure: With a minimal single-column structure, the cover letter gives a modern and professional vibe
- Color Scheme: Initially, it comes with a contemporary blue color scheme. But you can easily change the color according to your preference from the Hiration cover letter tool.
Traditional Maroon Cover Letter Design
The traditional maroon cover letter template is ideal for mid-level technical professionals. This template is a single-column template and one of the best-performing templates among hiring managers.
The primary color of the template is Maroon, but you can easily change it to your liking from the Hiration Cover Letter Builder tool.
Key Features :
- ATS-Compliant: These premium templates are highly ATS-friendly and give amazing result to the job seekers
- Structure: This is a content-focused template. The design is kept to minimal so that the reader can give their full attention to the letter’s content.
- Color Scheme: This cover letter design primarily uses shades of maroon to highlight the header. And the dark gray color is used for the texts.
Traditional Blue Cover Letter Template
Similar to the traditional Maroon cover letter template, it is also a single-column cover letter template with a minimum design well suited for mid-level professionals.
By default, the primary color of this cover letter template is blue, but from the tool, you can change the color to anything you want.
Key Features :
- High Performance: Traditional Blue cover letter design is by far the best-performing template among all the Hiraiton cover letter templates. It is also highly ATS-friendly.
- Structure: The structure is similar to traditional maroon cover letter design with a minimal focus of design and maximum focus on the cover letter content.
- Color Scheme: This cover letter template uses a blue accent in the header section and dark grey for the cover letter content.
Global Citizen Red Cover Letter Design
Global Citizen Red design cover letter is almost similar to the Global Citizen Green cover letter design. It provides a clean aesthetic with a minimal design. The red color in this cover letter template grabs the recruiter’s attention to read your cover letter.
Key Features :
- Premium: The Global Citizen Red cover letter is a premium ATS-Friendly template.
- Structure: It's a single-column template with only two sections: a header and a body.
- Color Scheme: The background color of the header section is red with white overlay texts. The background color of the body section is white.
Frequently Asked Questions
What to include in your cover letter?
A perfect cover letter must have the following sections:
- Header: Here goes your name, contact information, residential location, etc.
- Salutation: A professional salutation before starting the cover letter. For example:
- Dear Mr. Fox
- Dear Ms. Moore
- Dear Dr. Xavier
Learn more about salutation from how to address a cover letter article.
- Opening Paragraph: Start the opening paragraph with years of experience and one or two of your accomplishments to hook the reader.
- Second Paragraph: Here, showcase your previous accomplishments and explain how you are the most qualified person for the job.
- Third Paragraph: Talk about why you think the prospective employer is the right choice for you.
- Final Paragraph: End the cover letter with a strong CTA asking for an interview.
- Closing Salutation: End the cover letter with a proper closing salutation. For example:
Sincerely,
John Doe
What fonts to use on a professional cover letter?
A professional cover letter should be written in a simple, easy-to-read font such as Times New Roman, Ariel, Verdana, etc. And the font size should be between 11-13 points.
Make sure that the cover letter and the resume use the same fonts and design.
Who to address a cover letter to?
If the name of the hiring manager or reporting manager is given on the job description, address the cover letter to them. If not, use the internet/Linkedin to find the hiring manager’s name. You can also call the company desk to ask for the hiring manager’s name.
Still, if you cannot find the hiring manager’s name, use the generic cover letter address “Dear Hiring Manager.”
How long should a cover letter be?
A cover letter should not exceed a single page. Hiring managers read a lot of job applications on a daily basis. And if you send a two-pager cover letter, they will most likely not read the cover letter.
Should you include bullet points in a cover letter?
Yes, you can add bullet points in your cover letter to highlight your accomplishments.
Can a cover letter be an email?
If nothing is mentioned on a cover letter’s job description, you can certainly send the cover letter as an email body. But suppose the job specifically asks for a cover letter. In that case, you need to create a separate cover letter document and attach it to your email job application letter along with the resume.
Is a signature necessary for a cover letter?
If you are sending the cover letter electronically, a signature is not mandatory. You can just close the cover letter with
Sincerely,
Your Name
How to export a cover letter?
Exporting the cover letter in pdf format is the best way to go. Refrain from using Jpeg or PNG format for sending a cover letter. ATS software will fail to read these formats and reject your application.
How to make a simple cover letter for your resume?
Go to Hiraiton cover letter builder tools and simply pick from the existing cover letter templates and start writing.
Ensure that the cover letter design you are picking matches the resume design.
Key Takeaways
With that, we have come to the end of this blog. Creating a perfect cover letter design comes down to nailing the basics.
- Make sure to optimize the cover letter’s header section and include your name, contact information, professional email address, and residential location on the header.
- Use a simple font in your cover letter to improve readability and make the cover letter ATS-friendly.
- Do not include your photo in the cover letter. Instead, use a personal logo. It looks professional. Include a professional picture on the resume if required.
- Make sure to customize the cover letter for individual jobs, and avoid sending generic cover letters to every hiring manager.
Go to Hiration career platform which has 24/7 chat support and get professional assistance with all your job & career-related queries. You can also write to us at support@hiration.com and we will make sure to reach out to you as soon as possible.
