Common Cover Letter Mistakes and How to Fix Each One
The most common cover letter mistakes are all versions of the same problem: the letter is about you in general rather than about this job in particular. Restating your resume, praising the company in words that fit any company, and spending three lines announcing that you are applying are the ones that cost people most.
Below are twelve mistakes, each with a weak version and a rewritten version, so the fix is visible rather than described.
The test that catches most of them
One check finds the majority of problems in a draft. Change the company name and the job title to a different company and a different job, then read it again. If it still makes sense, it is not doing its job.
A cover letter that survives a find-and-replace of the company name is a cover letter that says nothing.
Opening mistakes: 1 to 3
1. Three lines of throat-clearing before the first real sentence
The first sentence is the one with the most attention on it, and most drafts spend it announcing something the reader already knows. They know which role you applied for. The application form told them.
I am writing to express my interest in the Customer Support Specialist position advertised on your careers page. Please find my resume attached for your kind consideration. I believe I would be a strong fit.
I have spent three years handling billing escalations for a subscription product with around 40,000 active customers — the same queue your posting describes as the team's current backlog.
One sentence, and it ties what you did to something in the posting. More options for that first line are in our guide to cover letter opening lines.
2. Praise that would fit any employer
Generic admiration is the clearest signal that a letter was written once and sent everywhere. Words like innovative, industry-leading, dynamic and forward-thinking are interchangeable, so they carry no information.
I have long admired your company's commitment to innovation and its reputation as a leader in the industry. It would be an honour to contribute to such a dynamic organisation.
Your posting mentions that support is moving from email-only to live chat this year. I ran that migration at my current employer, including the macro library and the escalation rules that stopped chat from swallowing the phone queue.
You do not need to compliment the employer at all. Showing that you read the posting closely is the better form of respect.
3. The relevant experience arrives in paragraph three
Drafts written in chronological order bury the thing that makes you a candidate under two paragraphs of context. Move it up. Context can follow.
Paragraph 1: why I want to work here. Paragraph 2: my degree and first job. Paragraph 3: the two years I spent doing almost exactly this role.
Paragraph 1: the two years doing almost exactly this role, named in the first sentence. Paragraph 2: one specific result from it. Paragraph 3: the rest of the background, briefly.
Substance mistakes: 4 to 6
4. Restating the resume in prose
This is the most common mistake of all. The letter walks through the same jobs in the same order, in full sentences, and adds nothing. The letter's job is the part a resume cannot hold: why these items connect to this opening, and what happened as a result.
From 2022 to 2025 I worked at Halden Logistics as an Operations Coordinator, where I was responsible for scheduling, vendor communication and reporting. Before that I was an Operations Assistant at Corbeau Freight.
At Halden Logistics I rebuilt the vendor scheduling process after a driver shortage left us missing pickup windows. I moved us off a shared spreadsheet onto a single dispatch board, and late pickups dropped from routine to rare within two quarters.
One story told properly is worth four job titles. If a draft is mostly re-narration, delete it and start from the posting instead of the resume, which is also how tools such as SwiftCover work.
5. Writing about what the job would do for you
A letter can say what draws you to the work, but it cannot be built on that. The reader is solving a problem on their team. Career development, exposure and mentorship are your reasons for wanting the role, not their reasons for hiring.
This role would be an excellent opportunity for me to develop my analytics skills and gain exposure to a larger organisation. I am looking for a place where I can grow into a senior position.
I want this role because it is analytics work with a direct line to operations decisions, which is the part of my current job I do best. Last quarter I built the reporting that ended a long argument about which depots were actually over capacity.
The rewrite still expresses genuine motivation. It anchors it to something you have done.
6. Adjectives with no evidence behind them
Passionate, detail-oriented, hardworking, team player. Every applicant claims these, so the words separate nobody. Replace the claim with the thing that would make someone else say it about you.
| Claim | Evidence that replaces it |
|---|---|
| Detail-oriented | I own the pre-send check on our monthly invoice run of 900 invoices. |
| Strong communicator | I rewrote our onboarding emails after we traced repeat tickets to two confusing steps. |
| Team player | I cover the Monday queue for whoever is on call, and I trained both of last year's hires. |
| Fast learner | I picked up SQL in my first month because the reports I needed did not exist yet. |
Targeting mistakes: 7 to 9
7. The wrong company name, or the wrong job title
This happens to careful people, usually on application five of the evening. It is the one mistake on this list with no recovery.
Check the name and the title last, every time
Before you attach anything, search your draft for the company name and the exact job title as written in the posting. Do it as a separate final step, not while you are still editing the body. Reusing a letter is fine; skipping that check is where the accident happens.
8. Ignoring the words the posting actually uses
If the posting says "client onboarding" and your letter says "customer implementation", a human will connect them and screening software may not. Screening tools filter on the posting's own terminology, so wording that mirrors it survives that step.
This is not keyword stuffing. It is using the employer's vocabulary for things you genuinely did.
I have extensive experience bringing new customers up to speed on our platform and looking after them through their first few months.
I ran client onboarding for a portfolio of 30 mid-market accounts, from kickoff call through to first successful billing cycle.
SwiftCover flags which of a posting's terms are missing from your documents, but a highlighter and a printed posting does the same job.
9. Claiming all ten requirements instead of the two that matter
A letter that answers every bullet reads like a form and hides the strong parts among the weak ones. Pick the two or three requirements you are genuinely strong on, usually the ones listed first, and give those real space.
I have experience with inventory systems, vendor negotiation, forecasting, team leadership, budgeting, compliance reporting, ERP migration and process documentation.
Two of your requirements are where I am strongest. I led our ERP migration for the warehouse module, including the cutover weekend, and I have negotiated the vendor contracts for our three largest suppliers for the past two years.
Length, format and closing: 10 to 12
10. One long block, or a letter that runs to a full page and a half
Density is its own mistake. An unbroken block is skipped, not read. Aim for three or four short paragraphs on one page, and cut anything not doing work. Our guide on how long a cover letter should be covers the specifics.
A 400-word single paragraph covering your degree, three jobs, your reasons for leaving each, your availability and your enthusiasm for the company's mission.
Opening line with the match. Short paragraph on the strongest relevant thing you have done. Short paragraph on the second. One closing line. Availability and salary only if the posting asked.
11. A closing that either apologises or oversteps
The last line is often the weakest sentence in the letter. Two failure modes: shrinking, or presuming.
I know I do not meet every requirement, but I hope you will consider my application anyway. I will call your office on Tuesday to discuss arranging an interview.
I would be glad to walk through the dispatch board rebuild in more detail. I am available for a call any afternoon this month.
Confident, specific, and it leaves the next move where it belongs.
12. Stale mechanics: salutation, formatting, file name
Small things, quickly fixed.
- "To Whom It May Concern" reads as a letter written for nobody. Use the hiring manager's name if the posting gives one, otherwise "Dear Hiring Team".
- Full postal address blocks are a holdover from paper. Your name, email and phone are enough.
- File names like "coverletter_final_v3.pdf" land in a folder with hundreds of others. "Firstname-Lastname-Cover-Letter.pdf" is easier for the person filing it.
- Sending a DOCX when the posting asked for a PDF, or the reverse.
A five-minute final pass
Run this before you attach anything. It catches most of the twelve.
- Company name and job title are correct, checked as a separate step.
- The first sentence names something you did.
- No sentence would survive being pasted into a different application.
- Nothing is a plain restatement of a resume bullet.
- Every adjective about you is followed by evidence, or deleted.
- Your two or three strongest requirements have the most words.
- Key phrases match the posting's own wording.
- Three or four short paragraphs, one page.
- The closing neither apologises nor schedules anything on their behalf.
- Read aloud once. Anything you stumble over gets rewritten.
If you only fix one thing
Fix the first two sentences. That is where the generic language concentrates. A full paragraph-by-paragraph structure is in our guide on how to write a cover letter.