Graduate cover letter example

The full letter

A final-year logistics and supply chain student applying to a graduate operations scheme.

What each paragraph is doing

• The opening answers why this employer

  Graduate schemes receive applications from people applying to twenty schemes, and every reader knows it. Naming one concrete feature of this scheme, the depot rotation, and giving a reason for preferring it, is the cheapest way to be the exception. It also says something true about the candidate's temperament in one clause.

• The evidence paragraph treats a student project as real work

  It has a client, a constraint, an analysis, a change and a result that outlived the project. The detail that carries it is the 30-minute cut-off: a specific finding is proof that somebody actually looked at the data, while a generic result is proof of nothing.

• The part-time job is given a paragraph, not a line

  Two and a half years in a stockroom with eleven months of shift responsibility is the most job-like thing in this application. Most graduate letters bury it under the degree. Inviting the question about it is a small, confident move that usually works.

• The grade paragraph discloses a weakness with a reason

  Strongest in inventory modelling, weakest in corporate finance, connected to the finance rotation in the scheme. It is honest, it is relevant, and it asks for support rather than hiding a gap that an assessment centre would expose anyway.

What to change for your application

1. Name one feature of this employer's scheme. A rotation, a site, a product, a training structure, a team. One specific, one reason. Everything else in a graduate opening is interchangeable.
2. Pick the project with a client. A dissertation done for an organisation beats one done for a module, a society budget you actually ran beats a case study, and a part-time job beats both if it carried responsibility.
3. Include the finding, not just the result. Two of the eleven sites had a cut-off 30 minutes earlier is the sentence that proves the analysis happened. Without it, the improvement could have come from anywhere.
4. Give the part-time job its own paragraph. Hours, duration, and the responsibility that was yours. Graduate employers are buying reliability, and a two-year job is the best evidence of it you own.
5. Be specific about grades. Predicted classification, plus the modules you are strong and weak in. It is checkable, it is more useful than a number alone, and it lets you frame the weak spot yourself.
6. End with availability. Graduation date, start date, where you can travel. Graduate schemes are scheduling problems as much as hiring ones.

Mistakes specific to graduate letters

• Opening with the degree. I am a final-year student at the University of X is the first line of most of the pile, and it tells a reader nothing that is not on the CV header.
• Adjectives instead of evidence. Hardworking, motivated, detail-oriented and a fast learner are free to write, so they carry no information. Each one should be replaced by something that happened.
• Praising the company. A paragraph about the employer being a market leader tells them what they already know and spends your space on their achievements.
• Hiding the part-time job. The stockroom, the bar, the call centre and the tutoring are the parts of a graduate CV that show up to work on time for two years. Treat them as experience, because they are.
• Describing a group project as though you did all of it. Assessment centres are built around group work, and the mismatch shows within an hour.

The under-200-word version

Most graduate schemes apply through a portal with a message field, often capped. The project and the part-time job are what have to survive.

184 words. The finding about the cut-off time survives the cut because it is the only sentence proving the analysis was real rather than assumed.

Questions people actually ask

What do I write about with no work experience?

You almost certainly have more than you are counting: a dissertation with a real client, a society treasurer role with a real budget, a part-time job with real responsibility. Pick the one where other people depended on the outcome and write it with a constraint, an action and a result.

Should I mention my grades?

Yes, if they are predicted or final and relevant to the scheme. Naming the modules you are strongest and weakest in is more useful than a classification alone, and it lets you frame a weak area before an assessment centre finds it.

How long should a graduate cover letter be?

One page, four or five short paragraphs, and shorter is safer than longer. A graduate letter that runs past a page is usually padded with adjectives and enthusiasm, and both of those are the parts a reader skips.

Can I use the same letter for several schemes?

Reuse the project paragraph and the part-time job paragraph unchanged. Rewrite the opening for every employer, because the sentence naming something specific about their scheme is the whole reason the letter gets read.