Every day employers everywhere receive resumes. With such a volume of hopeful applicants, how does one stand apart from the pack? The answer—besides a professional and thorough looking resume and a great professional appearance—is a cover letter. This tells the employer about you personally, as well as your objections and intentions. Suddenly, you are not simply a faceless resume. Cover letters give applicants a personality and a quality that singles them out. A cover letter can mean getting you from a walk-in applicant to an up-and-coming employee.

Highlight what makes you different

Let your potential employer know about all your skills, attributes, experiences and talents because chances are you will have plenty of opportunities to display these in the job if you get hired. Think of your cover letter as a little movie trailer or a teaser for what you would be like as an employee. Have you never called in sick before? Are you punctual to a fault? Have you made a difference at a previous job that actually has a percentage statistic? Bring all this up!

Do not be negative

We repeat…do not be negative! Never, ever include personality conflicts with previous coworkers or employers in your cover letter or any legal issues or sarcastic remarks. You want to project all the positivity you can onto the page. If you are speaking ill about a current or previous place of employment, an interviewer may fear a similar situation if he or she hires you. You want to seem like a financially and emotionally sound decision.

Do you talk about salary?

If a prospective employer requests you to or the ad mentions it, then yes you may mention salary requirements and/or history. But if you are showing up to a business with no previous research into the role do not include it in the cover letter. This may be something you discuss later on in the interview.

Be direct

The more professional a cover letter or resume the more likely that an employer will deem you qualified to climb within the company. No matter what you are applying for, always approach the cover letter like you are applying for the highest level within the business; by that we mean attitude, manner and grammatical fluidity. Be as direct as possible, and mention your desire to grow with the business and as an employee in general. The best applicants are those that have all the potential to become the boss one day.