Best Cover Letter Templates for 2023

Elevate your job application with a standout cover letter that impresses hiring managers. Our professionally designed cover letter templates streamline the process, saving you time and effort on formatting. With a sleek design and personalized touch, our templates leave a lasting impression, allowing you to focus on showcasing your skills and talents to recruiters.

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Cover Letter Templates
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Recommended Cover Letter Templates

You’ll find our entire collection of free cover letter templates below. However, we strongly recommend you consider these premium templates. Our certified resume writers partnered with designers and recruiters to make these ATS-friendly designs.

Why You Need a Cover Letter

    • Even if an employer doesn’t formally request a cover letter in the job posting, including one is always a good idea.

      First of all, it is just expected. Cover letters are the business norm in most countries.

      Better yet, a cover letter is a chance to show your personality and include more information about yourself than you have room to fit in a resume alone.

      A resume and cover letter are complementary documents to provide a more well-rounded account of your identity as a job candidate.

      While your resume provides essential information, such as your work experience and primary skills, a cover letter offers a chance to tell a story about your skills and work experience. It’s an effective tool if you want to stand above the competition.

    • Why You Need a Cover Letter

      Human Resource Director Cover Letter Sample

Our Best Free Cover Letter Templates

These elegant and classic cover letter templates can help elevate your letter, regardless of your experience level or career path. These templates are especially appealing if you’re interested in a conventional banking, accounting, teaching, or law job.

Free Modern Cover Letter Templates

These modernized templates provide streamlined designs with brightly colored margins and minimal font choices. These cover letter templates are well-suited for progressive candidates applying for jobs in the tech or creative industries.

Free Contemporary Cover Letter Templates

These cover letter layouts rely on two or three-column formats to help you prioritize your personal and professional accomplishments. These designs are ideal for recent graduates or job seekers with work gaps who would like to dedicate sections to explaining those academic and professional breaks.

Free Creative Cover Letter Templates

These visually stunning and nontraditional cover letter formats are visually stunning and bursting with creativity. When selecting from this category, ensure your choice will be considered appropriate in your industry.

Free Clean Cover Letter Templates

These downloads elevate basic templates for cover letters with bold pops of color. Lively designs can help brighten a standard cover letter and visually impress hiring managers.

Free ATS-Optimized Cover Letter Templates

Before your cover letter makes it to a hiring manager, the format will be scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS). These downloadable templates have purposely designed ATS-optimized layouts with standardized margins and fonts.

How to Use Our Cover Letter Templates

Our cover letter templates are easy to use. Simply hover over the image of a template you liked and click the ‘Download’ button. A Microsoft word file will be saved to your device –– allowing you to open and tailor it to your needs.

Whether you use one of our templates or a similar cover letter template online, watch for these important features. A well-designed and well-written template for a cover letter needs to include the following:

Streamline the writing process by including pre-written paragraph examples that you can further personalize to include all these details. This attention to detail can help impress hiring managers by demonstrating your clear understanding of the position’s requirements.

Your Contact Information

Your contact info should visually match the information on your resume. Most templates include the following information, so tweak it to match your resume.

Hiring Manager’s Contact Information

The hiring manager’s contact info follows a very standard business letter format and should include the following information in this order:

  • Add credibility to your resume by adding additional information to one or two major accomplishments listed on your resume. You should add examples of achievements or advancements and directly tie them to the job description.
  • Create a personal connection between your professional motives, professional passions, and the company’s mission statement or business goals.
  • Incorporate strategic keyword phrases and terms from the job description to pass the initial ATS scans. Wich helps demonstrate your attention to detail and understanding of the job requirements.

Summary Statement or Objective Summary

Your introduction paragraph is similar to your resume’s summary statement or objective summary. It’s your opening pitch to explain how and why you are qualified to fill the needs of an open position and should mention the following:

  • Professional full name
  • Current job title
  • Phone number
  • Professional email

Body Paragraphs

Your cover letter’s body paragraphs will build on your opening pitch by referring to specific accomplishments mentioned on your resume. You need to use this space to explain your thought and work process to achieve results and how you plan to replicate these accomplishments in this new potential work environment.

A strong cover letter template will include pre-written text with dedicated fill-in spaces where you can add the following info:

  • Professional full name
  • Job title
  • Optional mailing address associated with the workplace
  • Phone number
  • Professional email

Concluding Statement

Your concluding statement summarizes your professional marketing pitch quickly and invites the hiring manager to contact you for further consideration. An effectively designed cover letter template includes fill-in-the-gap sections to add the following information:

  • Job title/related experience
  • Reason for applying
  • Personal/professional connection

Signature

You should use a professional sign-off (such as sincerely, sincerely yours, best regards, or most sincerely) followed by your full name written underneath. Adding a handwritten signature is optional; though not required, it does make a good impression. It is possible to add your handwritten signature digitally. Example:

Regards,

Your Name

Email

LinkedIn Profile (Optional)

Twitter Account (Optional)

Upgrade Your Cover Letter and Resume

Although we have hundreds of free cover letter templates, writing it can be challenging. Make it a more straightforward process by trying our Cover Letter Builder. Our builder comes with pre-written cover letters, job-specific paragraph templates, and writing tips, while a subscription unlocks exclusive templates, unlimited online storage, and our Resume Builder.

Cover Letter Resources

We hand-picked our most popular cover letter templates because of their sleek designs, easy customization, and versatility for any role or industry.

Cover Letter Resources
  • How to Write a Cover Letter: Learn how to write a cover letter that makes a great first impression with recruiters and hiring managers.
  • Cover Letter Formats: One of the keys to writing a good cover letter is to pick the proper format. Our professional designs and expert writing tips will help you put your best foot forward with each job application.
  • Cover Letter Examples: Review our sample cover letters for their designs, layout, and formatting, and see how to write in a way to land the job you want.
  • Cover Letter Builder: Our online builder makes it easy to create a letter. We ask about the job posting, experience, and strengths; then, we create a rough draft summarizing why you’re the ideal candidate!

Cover Letter Templates FAQs

Updated: April 17, 2023

Like your resume, your cover letter should be tailored to each position and company. That doesn’t mean you must create a new cover letter from scratch. Your introduction and conclusion can be templated paragraphs that you can change to meet each job opening’s unique requirements.

It's generally a good idea to match the formatting of your cover letter to your resume, as it can help create a cohesive and professional look for your job application. This can help demonstrate attention to detail and a polished appearance to potential employers.

That being said, there is no hard and fast rule that your cover letter must match your resume format exactly. A simple cover letter template can fit multiple resumes format, saving you time and ensuring you get all the important details in your job application.

Unless the job application asks for a specific file format, you should upload your cover letter in a PDF or Word doc file format. These file formats are the most frequently used and are familiar to applicant tracking systems, making it easier for these programs to accurately rate your application.

The cover letter template PDF format is ideal because it retains your letter’s font, size, and margins regardless of the operating system or word processing program that the hiring manager uses. For example, your copy of Microsoft Word may support the font Helvetica. However, your recipients might not recognize the font and convert your letter to a standard font that changes your file’s formatting and layout.

If you’d like to find additional cover letter templates, Microsoft Word offers free and paid downloads on their site.

  • Visit the Microsoft Office templates website at https://templates.office.com/.
  • Click Resume and Cover Letter Templates under Popular Templates.
  • Browse their Free or Premium Templates, including the free cover letter template word options.

Yes, you should use a cover letter template. A template for a cover letter uses screen-friendly techniques, including the following design elements to help frame your professional message:

  • Screen-friendly font types
  • Pre-set font size
  • Standardized margin widths
  • Paragraph breaks
  • Borders

Using a template helps simplify these decisions so you can focus on a tailored appeal to hiring managers.

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