How to Write a Cover Letter: Banking, Finance & Accountancy

 
You might have heard that investment banks and other big financial services companies simply won’t have time to read your cover letter. That might be true, but an experienced recruiter will be able to detect a bad covering letter at a glance. So for large companies, while it might not matter so much if you craft the perfect cover letter, a noticeably poor cover letter will certainly scupper your chances.

A cover letter for a banking, finance or accountancy firm is a professional document, which should, in essence, be a sales pitch to accompany your CV. It’s your chance to sell yourself as a strong candidate for the role. That means recruiters don’t want to hear your sob story; they are much more interested in: who you are, what you’ve done and whether or not you have the skills for the job. It’s as simple as that.

Keep it short…

Since most employers in the banking, finance and accountancy sector will (most likely) only glance at your cover letter, you need to keep it short. By short, we mean one side of A4 maximum and certainly no more than 500 words.

Most banking and finance companies are pretty strait-laced, so you’ll need to make sure your cover letter is written in a professional and formal manner. At the same time, try to stem the impulse to clog your cover letter with financial jargon and business speak, although you might want to consider using a few carefully chosen buzzwords.

Tailor it to the company…

An example of a bad cover letter is one where the applicant has made no attempt to tailor it to the company they are writing to. It’s the job application equivalent of saying to the employer you simply CBA. Believe us! Recruiters will be on the lookout for any formulaic applications where it’s obvious that the applicant has sent the same letter to multiple companies. More often than not, these letters will go straight in the bin.

So to fast-track your application to the “we’d be mad not to interview them” pile, you need to make sure you tailor your cover letter to each company and each job you apply for. Research the job to find out exactly what it will involve. Scour the company literature to suss out what makes them different from their competitors and to get a sense of their company culture.

Don’t write anything until you have properly read the job advert and researched the company. You should be able to identify the key things (keywords) the company is looking for and what they value in their employees.

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