James Innes is the Managing Director of The CV Centre, the UK’s leading CV consultancy. James founded The CV Centre in 1998 and has built the company to its current position as UK market leaders in the field of CV consultancy. James regularly delivers presentations to recent graduates and also contributes widely to newspapers and magazines in both the UK and France and is the author of The Interview Book, The CV Book, The Cover Letters Book and The Interview Question and Answer Book

About the author 

Acknowledgements 

How to use this book 

Part 1 Laying the foundations 

1. Why are cover letters so important? 

2. Getting the basics right 

Part 2 Job-hunting letters 

3. Speculative letters: your foot in the door 

4. Advert-response letters: a winning strategy 

Part 3 Specialist cover letters 

5. Letters of application for specialist sectors 

Part 4 The 15 most common cover letter mistakes 

6. How to avoid them! 

Part 5 Other job search letters 

7. Application follow-up letters 

8. Interview thank-you letters 

9. Negotiating an offer 

10. Requesting a reference 

11. Resignation letters 

12. Offer acceptance letters 

13. Rejecting an offer 

14. Accepting rejection

Part 6 Pay rise request letters 

15. Requesting a pay rise 

Part 7 Promotion request letters 

16. Requesting a promotion 

Part 8 CVs and interviews 

17. CVs 

18. Interviews 

Part 9 My five top tips to make your cover letter stand out 

19. How to make your cover letter stand out! 

20. Checklist

Further reading and resources 

Appendix A: 250 action verbs 

Appendix B: 50 positive adjectives 

Appendix C: 222 commonly misspelled words 

Index