So you want to apply for your dream job: My tips for crafting a successful cover letter

If you know me at all, I’m proud to be a writer at Microsoft — first, I interned as a UX Writer on the Cortana Show Me App. Then, I shifted to telling stories about the people who build, deploy, and maintain Microsoft technology. Now, I spend all of my time interviewing world-class experts and telling their story on Microsoft IT Showcase. In other words, I get to make a living as a storyteller, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. As passionate as I am about writing about Microsoft technology and designers, artists, and engineers who inspire me, I also want to empower others to tell their story.

Recently, a Writer position opened up at Microsoft, and I’ve gotten dozens of messages from folks who are interested in applying. In addition to their resume, I always encourage people to write a cover letter and tell the story of their experiences in their own words. I thought I’d summarize some of my pointers for applying to Microsoft, but these skills can be applied to any job application.

Without further ado, here are some tips to keep in mind as you draft a compelling story about your identity and experiences.

Learn about the company from the inside out

Chances are, you’ll learn the most about a company by talking directly to employees. Get on LinkedIn and start following folks with roles or who are on teams that align with your interests. That way, you’ll be in the loop once a job posting opens up!

Better yet, schedule some time with folks who are at the company or in the roles you’re interested in. I get lots of connection requests on Linkedin, and I’m the most likely to meet with folks who sent me a personalized note about how they find me and why they want to meet.

This way, I know they’ve done some research about the things I’ve worked on by reading some of my stories, browsing my portfolio, or reading the articles I’ve written on LinkedIn. Do your research *before* you reach out, and come to the table with specific questions.

Try this: When you reach out to someone in your dream role or at your dream company, identify 3 specific things you want to learn about that are specific and well-scoped.

Connect with the core values of a company

Look up the core values of the company where you’re applying, and reference them in your resume and cover letter.

Each company has its own set of values, principles, or things to live by, and you can find them with a simple Google or Bing search. Facebook has 5 core values for employees and company success that emphasize the importance of being bold and open, prioritizing impact, and moving fast. Similarly, Amazon has leadership principles that underpin every project and emphasize delivering results, moving toward action, and thinking big.

Additionally, a lot of companies have blogs that celebrate employee stories and perspective — a few that come to mind are Microsoft Life, the Spotify HR blog, and the Airbnb blog.

Microsoft’s core values come back to its mission: Empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. Its corporate values are respect, integrity, and accountability. Additionally, we focus on a few other things:

Customer obsession: Like most large companies, our customers and partners are at the heart of everything we do. As someone who writes about how Microsoft runs on its own technology, we create content that answers common customer questions or responds to challenges that customers are facing. For example, after COVID-19 led to a massive shift to working from home, we created a suite of content about supporting remote work to support customers who were navigating the transition to work from home.

Connecting the dots: Who are the targets users or demographic for your work, and how do you make decisions based on their needs?

Growth mindset: At Microsoft, we focus on having a learn-it-all mindset (versus a know-it-all mindset). This means that we’re asked to try new skills or projects, even if it’s challenging. This is evident through the company’s annual hackathon, where thousands of employees across 75 countries used Microsoft technology to solve problems, meet folks in every discipline from marketing to operations, and submit their projects to company challenges that are judged by folks in leadership.

Connecting the dots: Think of a time when you had to learn a new skill or take on a new responsibility. What steps did you take to learn this skill? In what ways did you take risks?

Try this: Identify an experience on your resume that aligns with your dream job, and write about how that experience aligns with one of the company’s core values.

Identify the core responsibilities of the role and align with them

As with most job postings, you’ll have the option of adding a cover letter. My advice? Write the cover letter, and ensure that it’s tailored to the role. It should be consistent, but not redundant, with your resume.

Here are my tips for writing a strong letter that captures your story:

Envision yourself in the role: Your cover letter is a place for you to highlight a few specific stories about how you demonstrated the responsibilities outlined on the job description *or* the transferable skills from your current or past experiences. It also helps to bring in relevant keywords, core values of the companies, or names of folks you might know on the team or in similar roles.

Do your research: What are they in the news for? What are some of the leadership values or tenants of their mission? For example, a quick search for Spotify will tell you that the company has doubled its podcasts listeners since the beginning of 2019. If you’re applying, you might want to talk about how your multimedia content strategy would support music and podcasts listeners.

Identify keywords: Copy and paste the job description into a word document and highlight all the keywords and skills you want to highlight. Note common action verbs, deliverables, and brand guidelines. What words are coming up the most often? Take a pass at your resume and see how you can incorporate some of those keywords from the job description. You might need to rephrase your current experiences so they sound consistent with the job description.

Example: Spotify’s UX Writer job description focuses on the importance of collaborating with others when creating content or writing for a product. For this reason, I changed: “write, edit and publish stories” to “collaborate with engineers, marketers, and product groups to tell engaging stories about Microsoft technology.” That way, my current experience sounds more aligned with that role.

Tell a story about your experiences using the STAR method

Now, you’re ready to write a cover letter. Although cover letters are usually optional, I see them as an opportunity to tell your story in your own words and envision yourself in the new role. Rather than summarizing your accomplishments, tell a specific story of impact about how you solved a problem, worked with a client, or delivered a feature.

Start by identifying 2–3 stories you can tell that would hit a few of the bullet points on the job description. Here are things you can ask yourself to get started:

• What does a typical day-in the-life at work look like for me?
• When do I feel the most connected to my work? Where am I having the most impact?
• How can I apply skills from my current job to the new role?

In each story, use the STAR method, a format you can use to answer interview questions about your current or former jobs. I apply the same method when writing cover letters, and it usually doubles as interview prep! I recommend writing out your responses to each question, and then returning to it with the goal of making it more concise.

Let’s go through each part of the STAR method, and I’ll use an example story I would tell in response to a question like “Tell me about a time when you collaborated effectively with others.”

Situation: Provide some context about the situation, role, and company. What does a content strategist do? What does your start-up focus on? Provide enough context to situate your reader in 1–2 sentences. In my case, I saw that I advocate for storytelling in a business environment by writing about the world-class experts who build, maintain, and deploy Microsoft technology.

Example: I work as a writer for IT Showcase, which is an external platform where we write about how we use our own technology at Microsoft. I leverage my journalism skills by interviewing world-class experts in data and AI, security, and operations and capturing their stories in blogs. This way, other enterprises can learn how we implement our technology and follow suit.

Task: Tell us about what you did in the role. What were you asked to do, how were you measuring success? What feedback did you receive?

Example: I recently wrote a blog about the employees who run our US Immigration Yammer community, which is a place where visa-dependent employees can get connected to accurate and timely legal guidance and resources in this tumultuous immigration climate. I wanted to showcase Yammer as a powerful tool for connecting employees and disseminating information, while also acknowledging the power of empathy and the vulnerability of visa-dependent employees who shared their story.

Action: Now, get to do the good stuff! What did you do, and who did you work with?

Example: When interviewing the experts who ran this Yammer community, I asked open-ended questions about their goals for running the Yammer community as well as the challenges and lessons learned along the way. I also shared stories from my own friends and family members who unsure about the future and would have benefited from a community like this one, which led to a conversation about the importance of empathy in a community like this one.

Result: Share the results. Did you increase engagement by 50%? Successfully launch a project in multiple countries? Write dozens of articles about underrepresented communities?

In the first two weeks of being published, this blog got over 1,300 hits and drove traffic to other content about running Yammer communities. It was also featured in my organization’s Yammer community; Weekly Buzz, a newsletter that’s sent out to Microsoft employees around the world; and MSW, our one-stop shop for all things employee news at Microsoft.

Once you’ve gone through the STAR method, don’t forget the icing on the cake — Reflection. Connect the story to the role you’re applying to. How will you apply these skills to this new role, organization, or program? This is a great place to connect back to the company’s values or mission.

Numbers aside, I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to write about how we’re using tech for good at Microsoft, and my experience as a journalist prepared me to ask questions that got to the heart of this story and its impact. I hope that it made visa-dependent employees at Microsoft and beyond feel a little less alone.

Finally, here are some quick tips:

• Keep your cover letter to one page. There’s no guarantee that a recruiter will read past the first, so keeping it concise is nice.
• Ensure that the formatting is consistent with your resume. Use a similar font scheme and retain the same header so your resume and cover letter look like a perfect pair.
• Read your cover letter out loud before you send it out. I also use a text-to-speech reader to ensure that my writing sounds clear and conversational and run it through Grammarly for my last read-through.

Try This: Write a 1–2 sentence description of your job that you would get anyone excited about your work. What details do you need to include for context? Who are your customers? Providing these details in your cover letter, resume, or LinkedIn can help contextualize your work for people who might not be familiar with it.

A final word — stay active on LinkedIn

Don’t wait for a job posting to put yourself out there! Instead, put yourself out there by telling stories about your work and the problems you’re solving. If you’re sharing your own lessons learned, chances are that recruiters will notice you and reach out. Plus, you’ll probably meet like-minded folks in the process.

Now, go forth and tell your story! I can’t wait to read all about it.

Looking for writing & storytelling support?

If you need writing support for drafting a cover letter, resume, or portfolio piece, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] or via LinkedIn. I have 6+ years of writing and storytelling experience writing for Microsoft, Alaska Airlines, and a range of publications. As a writing consultant, I’ll focus on supporting you holistically as a writer by asking open-ended questions, drawing out storytelling moments, and helping you feel confident in your work. My ultimate goal? Help you become a better writer, not just produce better writing.

Read testimonials, check out my rates, or book an appointment at www.aleenahansari.com/book. You can also send me a message on LinkedIn or via email if you have questions. I look forward to working with you!