"In the butchery of cover letter editing, one removes metaphors with chainsaws, cauterizes complexity with hot iron, and amputates anything more ambiguous than a grunt."
A-J Aronstein is a dean at Barnard College where he runs the career advising center. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Paris Review Daily, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. In his spare time he edits cover letters. He apologizes for what he has done to language in the service of those letters.
"At worst, cover letters strain one’s faith that words convey meaning at all, let alone that sentences can shimmer, steal breath, or gird spines. I spend each day climbing mountains of junky paragraphs, scavenging for hunks of usable scrap—like so much copper wire—my senses deadened by the incessant clang of multipart adjectives.
“'I am detail-oriented,' they write.
“'My skills are well-suited,' they aver.
“'I am a team player,' they fart onto the page.
"As if these injuries to the expressive purpose have no consequence for reader and writer.
"I describe cover letter composition in terms akin to the balancing acts of trick seals nosing beach balls aloft in exchange for applause and morsels of fish. In less than one page of text, a cover letter describes one’s qualifications by achieving three objectives: (a) expressing authentic-seeming interest in an organization’s mission and culture, (b) demonstrating adequate proof of having mobilized pertinent skills in previous contexts, and (c) communicating with sufficient obeisance to norms of professional décor.
"If you want to be a seal, I’m the best trainer in the circus. We can be done in minutes.
"But to understand cover letters will take longer."
Essay: The Art of the Cover Letter