Cover+Letters

Cover letters are wonderful opportunities to reveal who you are as a person and a professional to a future employer. Don't be perfunctory, simple, generic, or short in a cover letter. A personal, passionate, and professional cover letter may be a crucial factor in getting you an interview.

Like your resume, the cover letter needs to be targeted to the specific job. If you don't know enough about the job from the advertisement, call the school and talk to the principal before you write the cover letter. Your cover letter should be at least a very full page and can go to two pages. Talk about the kind of teaching you believe in, about experiences that are important to you and how they effect your commitments and philosophy, about what you hope to keep learning about in the future. Don't assume that they have the resume in front of them -- go over the relevant high points of the resume again. It is important to come off as academically / intellectually strong and as interested in and caring about students different from yourself, "at-risk," or whatever. Show them that you are a good writer by being both personal and professional.

Don't be shy about offering to bring new ideas, new energy, new strategies to the building you will come to work in; this is the very reason why new teachers are hired. Be specific about the approaches to English teaching that you would like to share with others. At the same time express an openness to continued learning and growth. The vision you are setting forward in the cover letter should find its echo in the resume, and vice versa.

Whenever possible, personally deliver your cover letter and file to the principal or personal director (not their secretaries). It is worth driving across the state to make such a delivery; try to get a "mini-interview" at the same time. Ask for tours of the school, chances to talk with other teachers and students, ask about attractive things about the community. Throughout the job seeking process be aggressive about contacting people, on the phone and especially in person. To you it will seem like you might be irritating them or being "pushy;" to them it will seem like you are eager, responsible, energetic, dedicated, and ready to work.