Cover Letter

This letter should stipulate your motivations for applying for ABC Company and XYZ division in a concise and personalised manner.

For some applications uploading a cover letter is not compulsory, but it is highly recommended that you do so, so you can get across your enthusiasm and passion for the firm you’re applying for!

Format

• 1 page long (never go beyond 1 page).

• In a professional font and an appropriate size (11 or 12).

Content

There’s not one definite way to organise a cover letter, but you can use the below as a general guideline.

As you’ll be applying to multiple firms, the temptation is to use the same cover letter for every one. However, if it’s the case that you can simply change the name of the consulting firm in your cover letter and use it for another one, then that suggests your cover letter isn’t specific enough! Whilst it is fine to use the same general framework for each cover letter, you must make each cover letter as specific to that specific application as possible. This will show the firm that you have done careful research to decide you have a particular interest in their firm.

Paragraph 1: Introduction

• Who you are: university, course.

• What you are applying for, how you heard

  about the opportunities.

• Name drop: university, people from the firm you’ve met, previous work experience etc.

Paragraph 2: Motivations

• What inspired you to apply to that specific type of consulting (strategy/operations/HR)?

  • Consulting Firm’s career websites often have information about each of their practices!

  • Name drop people you’ve met who have worked in that field of consulting and explain how they inspired you to apply.

  • Talk about the skill set that is required to work in that field of consulting and explain how you fit that and how you can use the skills you have to fulfil your role.

• Why that specific firm?

  • Research examples of recent projects they have done and explain why this excites you.

  • Read about the company’s culture and values and explain why you relate to these principles personally.

  • Read about the philanthropic work that the company has done and explain why this is important to you.

• What do you want to get out of the internship?

Paragraph 3: Past work experiences

• Mention the most relevant positions you’ve fulfilled in the past and explain carefully what job skills you earned and how these will help you in the role you’re applying for.

• Don’t be shy when talking about what role you had and the contributions you made – be proud of your achievements!

• Examples can be society positions, insight days, work experience weeks, extracurriculars.

TOP TIP

Do note that ‘relevant’ is not exclusive to things you’ve done related to the consulting industry – it can be any time you’ve demonstrated the necessary skills for the role you’ve applied for. For example, explaining how you’ve been able to deal with disgruntled clients when working in a store or a time at school or when doing an extracurricular activity when you’ve worked under pressure and had to make a quick decision.

Paragraph 4: Conclusion / Thank you

Thank them for taking the time to read your cover letter.