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No cover letter field? Send a note under 90 words
Many applications have no place for a letter. You can still make your case in a short note to the hiring manager, sent after you apply.
Dana Whitfield
Cofounder and CEO
More applications skip the cover letter field every year. Workday forms, quick-apply buttons and job board flows often stop at the resume. The case you would make in a letter still matters. It moves into a short note sent to a person after you apply.
Who to send it to
Look for the hiring manager first. The job post sometimes names them, and the company’s team page or LinkedIn usually does. If you cannot find them, the recruiter listed on the post is the next best choice. One person is enough. Sending the same note to five people at one company reads as spam. If two people could own the role, write to the one whose team you would join.
The 90-word note
Keep it under 90 words, in three or four sentences:
Say that you applied, for which role and when.
Give one result that matches the top requirement, with a number.
Say why this company, in one line.
Offer a next step that is easy to accept.
Each sentence does one job, and the whole note fits in a phone screen without scrolling. Here is one that works:
“Hi Nadia, I applied for the Founding Growth Marketer role on Monday. At Basecamp Bikes I took signups from 2,000 to 41,000 a month in 18 months on a $9K budget, mostly referral loops and SEO. I have used Driftwell to plan two trips and think group travel is your wedge. Would a 20-minute call next week be useful? Theo”
Where to send it
Email works best when you can find an address. Otherwise use LinkedIn, and put the result in your first line, because the message preview shows only about 50 characters. Attach nothing. Link to your application or portfolio instead.
Mistakes that sink the note
Pasting your whole cover letter into a LinkedIn message.
Asking for a job instead of a conversation.
Sending it before you apply, which leaves the reader nothing to look up.
Following up more than once.
Write the way one colleague writes to another: short, specific and easy to answer.
When to follow up
Wait five business days. If there is no reply, send one short follow-up that adds something new, such as a link to a relevant project. After that, let it go and put the time into your next application.
If you hear back
Reply within a day and suggest two specific times. If the recruiter answers instead of the hiring manager, thank them and ask what the next step looks like. Either way, the note did its job: a real person now knows your name and one result.
Pithy can export any letter as a plain email body, already trimmed to note length, so the work you put into the letter carries over to the message.
Three more short guides.
All articles
Writing
The one-screen cover letter: why 180 to 250 words gets read
Most hiring managers decide in the first two lines. Here is how to fit a full case for yourself on one screen, and what to cut first.
Writing
Write your opening line last
The first sentence is the hardest to write and the first one a recruiter reads. Write it after the rest of the letter, once you know what you are claiming.
Job search
Match job-post keywords without sounding like a robot
Applicant tracking systems and recruiters both scan for the words in the job post. Here is how to use them in sentences a person would actually say.
