Letter of Motivation: How to Paint the Best Picture of Yourself in Your Application?

When applying for a job, your mission is to tickle the imagination of your potential employer with your words, so that they immediately wish to meet you. Therefore, we will provide you with instructions and examples to understand your mission better.

You need to ask yourself two key questions and answer them in your letter:

Often, candidates forget to provide an answer to this question and mostly focus on the story about themselves, which greatly paints the overall picture. To answer it, you need to thoroughly research your future employer and their business. For example, you should get acquainted with the website, read blogs, check out the media and social media pages and find out as much as you can. This will make you understand if this is really the job for you, and what it would be like to work there.

Apart from that, it will make it easier for you to answer the second question:

This part is more familiar to candidates. However, mistakes are common here as well. Follow our instructions to present yourself in the best possible way.

While a CV is mostly in the form of short bullet points, your letter should be in the form of a text organized in several paragraphs. First, introduce yourself and briefly explain your current engagement; in the second part elaborate on your education, work experience, additional education and volunteer work. Finally, try to give reasons why the employer should choose you.

Correctness and orderliness are of great importance. Also, make sure that the letter is not too long in order to hold the employer’s attention until the very end. One A4 page is preferred. In the upper left corner, you should provide the name of the employer since he is the recipient. And in the upper right corner – your first and last name, as well as your phone number, address, e-mail address and date. Finish your letter with “Kind regards” or any similar phrase and your signature.

Essential note at the beginning: the employer should not have to read the same text twice. Of course, some parts of the letter of motivation and the CV will be the same, however, writing the letter is your chance to explain in detail the parts of your biography.

While writing about your educational level and acquired work experience, use concrete examples and life events in your letter of motivation to provide the evidence for your claims. This way you will avoid writing frequent phrases that are not fact-based.

If you happen to lose focus and forget about the purpose during the writing of the letter of motivation, in order to say as much as possible, we have prepared some basic questions that will get you back on track. Try to inform us about:

· Who are you?

· What makes you special?

· Do you have the knowledge, experience, and professionalism?

Write to the employer everything that you consider important but stick to the concept, so you don’t waste your words and their time. Mention only the experiences related to what you are applying for, do not go wide unnecessarily. Therefore, stay specific and avoid general sentences. If the focus is bad, the picture will be bad too.

Your letter of motivation should reflect a high level of professionalism, maturity and independence. Whether you have just completed your studies or already have some professional experience, show genuine interest in your field by successfully listing your qualities and knowledge. Let the employer see a person ready for collaboration, further learning and improvement.

Among other details in the letter, this is what will ultimately be crucial for the employer, so make yourself look good!

Make sure that all the above is written in a way that holds the employer’s attention as if they are reading a story and are interested to know how it will end. In addition to good grades and work experience, the personality of an employee who will be a new part of the collective is also important to the employer. What a perfect opportunity to show that you are interesting even before you meet your employer in person! So, use it!

The way of writing can also show your creativity and commitment, which are virtues that an employer will immediately see. Remember that the employer does not know you at the moment of reading your letter of motivation, therefore they will accept the picture you painted of yourself, that means, the one you present.

By presenting yourself, you mostly write about your achievements and successes, focusing on the past. But don’t you think that, when applying for a job, a part of your personality that you want to represent is also your future, what you hope and aspire to be? We certainly think so! By writing about your goals, you will introduce the employer to your ambitions and aspirations.

Also, try to relate your experience to your plans and explain why you are striving for it. This will make it easier for the employer to imagine you as part of his team and eventually choose you for the job. This is a good way to show that you have become familiar with the employer’s business and to present the way you think you could contribute to it through your work. Here, you have a chance to explain further the parts of your CV.

The last step, but perhaps the most important one. While writing the letter, you might realize there are some superlatives as a description of your knowledge or your accomplishments. We suggest avoiding that because it can often sound pretentious. It is completely desirable to write about your successes but try to do it modestly. You should know that only by listing the activities in which you participated and the rewards you received will be enough for the employer to conclude that you are an excellent candidate. By letting the reader conclude from the content about your characteristics, you will avoid being boastful.

Here’s a good example:

“As a volunteer in a non-governmental organization XYZ Serbia, Association for the support of children in out-of-family upbringing, I am working on the project “Support the Family”, aimed at the affirmation of human rights and on the democratization of the civil society.”

Now that you have all the instructions, harmonize your letter of motivation with them. We are sure that the employer will look forward to meeting you through the letter, and if he likes what you wrote, you will get the chance to meet them too, on the job interview!