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Actually, the purpose of the cover letter is to highlight the things you want
the reader to pickup on in the resume and to put forward ideas, skills, or
talents that might be overlooked otherwise. To me, the cover letter is the
place to tell the "What Elses"--or at least that's what I taught my students in
all my business and professional writing classes--and it seems to work for me.
For example, I have two fields--editing/writing and accounting. So if I'm
sending a business resume, I point out the things from my writing/editing
background that will be beneficial in a business environment and vice versa
when I'm sending out a writing resume. The cover letter is where you sell
yourself--up to the point of the interview. Char
Katav wrote:
> Cover letters, alas, are both good and bad. They tell the reader --
> assuming there IS a reader -- why you are submitting your resume; they
> don't [normally] tell the reader what ELSE you can do; how you can
> (further) benefit the company -
