To make an AI cover letter sound like you, spend ten minutes on six things: check every fact against your resume, move your strongest result to the first sentence, delete the stock phrases, add what only you know, read it aloud, and check the three names. The aim is a letter that is true and specific, not one that hides how it was drafted.
Below, the pass is timed minute by minute and carried out on one letter, shown before and after.
Key points
- Check every number, job title and date against your resume before you touch the style.
- Move your strongest result to the first sentence.
- Delete stock phrases; do not rewrite them. A sentence with no fact left goes too.
- Add two sentences no draft could contain: what was behind your best result, and why this employer.
- Do not add typos or slang to seem human. Specifics make a letter yours.
In this guide
What a draft still needs from you
A draft cannot know what it was never told. Cover Letter Guru, the tool we make, writes only from your resume and the job listing and does not invent experience or figures. A resume still leaves two things out that belong in every letter, and only you can add them:
- Why this company. The listing says what the employer wants. It does not say why you chose them.
- The detail behind a result. A resume says that a waiting time fell. Only you know what you noticed that made it fall.
Before: a generic draft
The example is fictional. Leila Haddad has spent three years in customer support at Quillby, which makes invoicing software, and two years before that as assistant manager of a café. She is applying to be Support Team Lead at Rotawell, which makes staff rota software and whose listing asks for first replies in under four hours.
What follows is a generic draft that we wrote for this guide. It is not the output of any tool.
Illustration: a generic draft
Customer support specialist applying for Support Team Lead · 121 words
Dear Hiring Manager,
I am writing to express my interest1 in the Support Team Lead position at Rotawell. With over five years of experience in customer support2, I am confident that I would be a valuable addition to your team.
At Quillby I have developed a proven track record of delivering exceptional customer experiences in a fast-paced environment. I successfully reduced first-response time from 11 hours to 3 hours3. I am also a dedicated team player with excellent communication skills, having trained five new starters and written 40 help-centre articles.
I have long admired Rotawell's reputation for innovation4 and its commitment to its customers.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely, Leila Haddad
What is wrong with it
- 1The first sentence repeats what the application already says. The best fact is a paragraph further down.
- 2The resume shows three years in support and two managing a café. The draft has added the two together and claimed five years in support, which the resume does not show.
- 3The one sentence worth keeping: a real result with both numbers, buried between two sentences of padding.
- 4True of any company, so it says nothing about this one. The real reason is in Leila's head.
The ten-minute pass, minute by minute
Set a timer and open the draft, your resume and the job listing. Ten minutes is enough when the draft was built from your resume. One built from a job title alone needs its facts supplied first (see prompts for a general chatbot).
Minutes 1 and 2: check every fact against your resume
Stop at every number, job title, employer, date and tool, and find it in your resume. Where the two disagree, change the letter to match the resume or cut the claim. Check even when the draft was written from your resume: the name at the bottom is yours.
Weak
With over five years of experience in customer support, I am confident that I would be a valuable addition to your team.
Strong
I have been in support at Quillby for three years.
The resume shows three years in support; the other two were at the café, which returns in minute six.
Minutes 3 and 4: replace the opening with your strongest result
Find the best fact in the draft and move it to the first sentence. Use the second sentence to name the role and tie the result to the listing. How to start a cover letter has forty more openings.
Weak
I am writing to express my interest in the Support Team Lead position at Rotawell.
Strong
Last year I cut first-response time at Quillby from 11 hours to 3.
The only addition is the year, taken from the resume. The result was already in the second paragraph, with "successfully" attached. It moved to the top and lost the adverb.
Minute 5: cut the stock phrases
Delete them; do not rewrite them. Strike every phrase any applicant could have written (a list is further down). If the sentence still holds a fact, keep the fact. If nothing is left, the sentence goes.
Weak
I am also a dedicated team player with excellent communication skills, having trained five new starters and written 40 help-centre articles.
Strong
I have trained five new starters and written 40 help-centre articles.
Everything before the comma went, and no information went with it. The first sentence of that paragraph held no fact, so it went entirely.
Minutes 6 and 7: add what only you know
This step makes the letter yours, and no draft can do it for you. Write two sentences: what was behind your best result, and why you want this employer.
Weak
I have long admired Rotawell's reputation for innovation and its commitment to its customers.
Strong
Before that I spent two years as assistant manager of a café, where I built the rota for 12 staff in Rotawell every Sunday evening. I know what it is like to be your customer at ten at night with a shift still to fill.
The café is in Leila's resume. That she built its rota in Rotawell is not, so no draft could have said it. The weak sentence fits any company; the strong one fits only this one.
Her other sentence gives the cause of her result: a third of the morning tickets asked the same question, so she wrote one help article and one saved reply.
81%
of the hiring professionals surveyed said they valued a tailored cover letter significantly over a generic one.
Minutes 8 and 9: read it aloud
Read the whole letter aloud once, at speaking pace. Where you run out of breath, split the sentence. Where you hear something you would never say to the hiring manager in person, write what you would say.
Weak
Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Strong
I would be glad to show you how I found that pattern in our queue. I am free for a call most mornings.
Aloud, the first version is how you end a conversation when you have nothing left to offer. The second says what Leila can show, and when.
Minute 10: check the three names
The company, the role and the person: check each against the listing, letter by letter. Leila's listing named the person the role reports to, so "Dear Hiring Manager," became "Dear Ms Holmberg,". With no name to find, the first greeting is correct: see Who to address a cover letter to.
After: the same letter, ten minutes later
The same letter after the ten-minute pass
The same person and job, six steps later · Friendly tone · 174 words
Dear Ms Holmberg,
Last year I cut first-response time at Quillby from 11 hours to 31. Your listing for a Support Team Lead asks for first replies in under four hours. I would like to do that again at Rotawell.
The change came from reading the queue. A third of our morning tickets asked the same thing2: how to correct an invoice that had already been sent. I wrote one help article and one saved reply for it.
I have been in support at Quillby for three years3. In that time I have trained five new starters and written 40 help-centre articles.
Before that I spent two years as assistant manager of a café, where I built the rota for 12 staff in Rotawell every Sunday evening4. I know what it is like to be your customer at ten at night with a shift still to fill.
I would be glad to show you how I found that pattern in our queue. I am free for a call most mornings.
Kind regards, Leila Haddad
Why this works
- 1Minutes 3 and 4. The result was buried in the draft's second paragraph. Now it is read first.
- 2Minutes 6 and 7. The detail behind the number, which was never in the resume.
- 3Minutes 1 and 2. The draft said "over five years". This is what the resume says.
- 4Minutes 6 and 7 again. The real reason for applying, where the draft had a compliment.
Look at what stayed: the 11 hours and the 3, the five starters and the 40 articles. The pass corrected one fact, cut what anyone could have written, and added two things only Leila could.
Cover Letter Guru drafts the letter from your resume and the job listing, and you can edit it in place. The first letter is free and needs an account but no card.
Write my first draftPhrases to cut on sight
These are examples of what not to write. Each takes up room where a fact could be.
- "I am writing to express my interest in..."
- "a proven track record of..."
- "in a fast-paced environment"
- "dedicated team player"
- "excellent communication skills"
- "results-driven", "highly motivated", "detail-oriented"
- "a passion for..."
- "a valuable addition to your team"
- "I have long admired your commitment to excellence"
- "leverage my skills"
- "I look forward to hearing from you"
The test for a phrase not on the list: could another applicant for the same job write the identical words? If so, delete it, or put in the fact it was standing in for.
What not to fix
The pass above makes every sentence true, specific and something you would stand behind at interview. Disguising how the draft was made is no part of it. So leave these alone.
- Do not add typos. A letter with a planted mistake is still a letter with a mistake.
- Do not add slang, or jokes you would not make at interview. Your voice in a cover letter is your judgement about what to include.
- Do not swap plain words for longer ones. Changing "helped" to "facilitated" gives the reader nothing new.
- Do not round a number up. What you add must be as true as what is in your resume.
Whether a letter will be recognised as AI-assisted is a separate question, taken up in Can recruiters tell a cover letter was written by AI?.
Common questions
- Should I add mistakes to make an AI cover letter look human?
- No. A typo is a typo, however it got there. What makes a letter read as yours is detail: a result with its real numbers, how you got it, and a reason for applying that fits only this employer.
- How long does it take to edit an AI-drafted cover letter?
- About ten minutes when the draft was built from your resume and the listing: two for the facts, two for the opening, one for stock phrases, two for what only you know, two to read it aloud and one for the names. A draft built from a job title alone takes longer, because its facts have to be supplied first.
- Can I ask the AI to rewrite the letter so it sounds more like me?
- You can ask for a different tone, which changes how the letter sounds, or a different length. Cover Letter Guru has four tones, and Regenerate, Shorter and Longer rewrite a letter with one click. No rewrite can add what the tool was never told, so what only you know still has to come from you.
- Is it dishonest to send a cover letter that AI drafted?
- We do not think so, provided every fact is true and you would defend every sentence at interview. The same holds for a letter a friend helped you write. If an application tells you not to use AI, or asks whether you did, do what it asks and answer honestly.
Sources
- ResumeGo, 2020. Survey of 236 hiring professionals, published with ResumeGo's 2019 to 2020 experiment.
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