How to write a cover letter that only claims what you can show

Most advice about cover letters is advice about tone. Tone is the last problem. The first problem is that a letter has to say something specific about you, and the only specific things available are the things you have already done. A letter built any other way ends up describing an enthusiasm rather than a person.

So write it backwards. Start with the posting, find the evidence you already hold that answers it, and let the sentences follow from that. The four parts below are what is left when you do. If you are still deciding whether the letter is worth writing at all, that question has its own page.

Part one: who it is for

One letter, one application. The role, the company and the posting itself are the three things a letter cannot be written without, because they decide which of your evidence is relevant. A general letter sent to twenty employers is a letter that answers none of their postings, and a reader can tell within a line.

Name the role exactly as the posting names it. If the posting calls it Payments Platform Engineer, your letter says Payments Platform Engineer, not "the engineering position". That single agreement is worth more than any adjective you could add.

Part two: the opening

The opening does one job: it states which role you are applying for and, where you have one, why this employer rather than another. It is two sentences at most. There is a whole page of advice on how to open a cover letter, and the short version is that the reader already knows you want a job, so the sentence has to carry something they did not know.

Part three: the proof

This is the letter. Two to four paragraphs, each one a thing you did, with the result attached. A proof paragraph that carries a number is stronger than one that does not, and the numbers you already have in your résumé achievements are the ones to reach for.

The rule that keeps this honest is simple: a claim in the letter must correspond to a line in the evidence. If you cannot point at the line, the claim comes out. That rule is not a style preference. It is the difference between a letter you can be interviewed on and a letter you will have to walk back.

The cover letter builder on this site applies it mechanically. It reads the posting, selects sentences from the résumé you connect, and records where each one came from. Open Details on any paragraph of Your letter and every sentence is listed with its source, "traced to your evidence · line 9", or marked as a connective that asserts nothing. Where it cannot find real evidence for a requirement, it writes less rather than filling the gap with language.

Part four: the close and the signature

One sentence offering to talk, and your name. A letter with no name on it is an unfinished letter, and the Before you send checklist on Review & download shows the signature it found before you export. The closing is the least interesting part of the letter and should stay that way; how to end a cover letter goes through the few variations worth having.

Wording is yours to change, the evidence is not

Every paragraph of the draft is editable. Change the wording as much as you like; what should not change is what the letter claims. If an edit adds a claim, the checklist on Review & download reminds you that changes are saved as written and that added claims are yours to check. If you want the builder's version back, Details on the paragraph offers to restore the wording built from your evidence, and Save version keeps a copy of any draft before you change it.

The reason only you can give

The reason you want this particular job is the one thing no reading of a résumé can produce, so the builder does not try. Write it yourself, in one or two sentences, into the Opening paragraph of the draft. A letter without it is a fair letter and a slightly colder one; a letter with a reason the reader can check against the posting is better than either.

Check it before you send it

Review & download shows the whole letter and a short Before you send checklist: the recipient and role it is addressed to, the signature, and the length in words. It asks you to read the final letter and check the names, facts and contact details yourself, because those are the errors that cost an interview and no checker can know your recipient's name better than you.

Nothing on that checklist blocks the export. It is a prompt to read, which is the correct relationship between a tool and a person's judgement. What they usually catch is on the mistakes page.

What this does not do

It does not invent a reason for wanting the job. It does not claim a skill your evidence does not show. It has no view on whether you will get an interview, and no honest tool has. What it can do is make sure that every sentence in front of a reader is one you can stand behind in the room afterwards, which is the part you control. If you are still assembling the evidence itself, writing the résumé comes first, and a first letter with no work history has its own page, and tailoring it to the posting makes the letter much easier to write.