How to Write a Good Cover Letter... even if you're not totally qualified

Hello all! Happy whatever holidays/birthdays/game wins you may be celebrating today!

I recently applied for an excellent-sounding job at The Management Center in Washington, DC, which is a non-profit that helps other non-profits manage themselves better. This encompasses everything from providing sample Employee Handbooks and Board Conflict of Interest policies to helping non-profits hire well and fire with grace. All in all, a pretty stellar group of people.

And lucky for you, I'm in the somewhat unique position of having had the best cover letter submitted for the position, but was not interviewed or selected for the job (they needed a local candidate, and I'm across the country).

But because the person hiring for the job happened to be the fabulous Ask A Manager, Alison Green, she gave me some excellent feedback and permission to use this posting as an example for writing an excellent cover letter!

Here's the job posting: (click link to see it in its original context)

program assistant

The Management Center (TMC) seeks a talented Program Assistant to support our growing organization. The Program Assistant should be a highly organized self-starter with an interest in management and a passion for making things run well.

About The Management Center
Our mission is to instill the management practices that make it easier for nonprofit leaders, and their organizations, to get outstanding results. We do this by providing direct assistance and coaching to client organizations, and by offering publications and training to the broader field. Founded in 2006, we have worked intensively with over three dozen clients, focusing in particular on leading progressive organizations working for social change. Along the way, we have built a strong reputation: on our most recent survey, 95% of respondents said they “Strongly Agree” that they would recommend TMC to a friend. Such positive word-of-mouth has created demand that the Program Assistant will help us meet by keeping our office running smoothly and efficiently and providing support to our programs.

Job Responsibilities
The Program Assistant will provide administrative and programmatic support to ensure that our client practice, training programs, operations, other functions, and special projects run effectively. Specific responsibilities will include:

• Coordinating all operations and functions of our fast-paced office, including ensuring that staff members have the space and supplies to do their work, scheduling client meetings, managing calendars, and performing other administrative tasks as needed.
• Helping to create seamless financial and HR management by managing accounts payable and receivable, working with TMC’s financial consultant to file taxes and produce statements, executing benefits policies, renewing benefits, and supporting the COO as needed.
• Supporting the functions of our client practice and growing training program as needed, including designing and maintaining systems to manage and track information.
• Owning and supporting other projects. Examples include creation of new tools to support our client work, design and analysis of our annual client survey, maintenance and expansion of our website, and help with revisions to our book and other publications.
• Serving as the point person for IT and other vendors.

Qualifications
The successful candidate will be a self-starter with excellent written and verbal communication skills and strong attention to detail. Candidates should be highly organized, flexible, and willing to do what it takes to get the job done. Sense of humor and commitment to progressive values are a plus. TMC is an equal opportunity employer, and we make a particular effort to recruit people of color to apply for open positions. This full-time position is based in Washington, DC and reports to the COO.

Compensation and Benefits
Competitive salary and generous benefits package available.

How to apply
Send a resume and cover letter to Alison Green at alison@managementcenter.org.

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Here's the cover letter I wrote. What I want you to notice first and foremost is that I'm not particularly qualified for this position.

To Alison Green:

I'm very excited to apply for the position of Program Assistant at The Management Center. Though I'm a touch green, I feel strongly that my skill sets and aspirations would complement the needs of the Management Center, and that we would be quite happy together.

First, I love management and learning about the way businesses and non-profits run. I never would have thought I'd feel that way, since I always found Business majors to be irritating and a little dense in college, but then I found myself as a Team Leader at a (fast food restaurant) a year and a half after graduating. I didn't initially want the position, but once I took it (to appease my manager, who has been a wonderful mentor to me), I decided to dedicate myself to doing it right. I have seen too many managers make too many mistakes to allow myself to learn only from those in the industry. I found some excellent resources that I've come to depend on, including Bloomberg's Businessweek, Rosetta Thurman's blog (especially the 31 Days to a Brand New Blog project) and the Ask a Manager blog (which may or may not be written by you, Alison Green is a pretty common name). And the more I learned about the intricacies of founding and starting a non-profit (I'm pretty sure I have swaths of Publication 557 memorized), the more I discovered that my talents don't call me to politics (though I only needed to work on one campaign to figure that one out), but to making an organization work behind the scenes.

Now, what appeals to me about this particular position is that it seems like its a bit of everything. I have a background in the administrative tasks the job would demand, such as scheduling, ordering office supplies, and being the caulk that keeps the sanity of the office from seeping out around the edges. I relish that sort of role, and pride myself in strong logistical thinking. My experience at (fast food restaurant) has helped immensely with this. When you're on the crew, you do your job and go home, but in management you're responsible for running the shift; being aware of the schedule on which all items need to get done, when people get breaks, how the dinner rush will be positioned, and of course someone called in sick, and you have to spend a half hour finding someone who can come in without going into overtime. I have every confidence that I can keep track of the million things going on in The Management Center's office and keep them running smoothly.

But what really excites me about this position is the HR, finance and program functions. These are admittedly the areas where I will need the most guidance and training, but they are also areas that I would love to get elbow deep in. I'm a total nerd for paperwork, and will read and nearly memorize the employee handbook in my first week just for fun. I love the idea of helping create systems to track info about TMC's training programs, and I have enough background in statistics that I would be an excellent asset in designing the annual client survey. I am a talented, FAST writer (I'd be happy to provide samples), so coming up with some copy about a new program for the website would be a cinch. This is the kind of organization I would love to work for in the long term, so anything I can learn from the Program Director, COO, and the CEO would be absorbed like a sponge, tossed about and evaluated, and then returned with some glitter and embellishments added on. I want to be a valuable part of the team.

Thank you so much for your time! Please review my resume and feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. I wish you luck in finding your perfect candidate, and I hope that turns out to be me!

-Kimberlee Stiens

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See that? Now, it helps that the position doesn't specifically call for a degree, or X years experience in any job, or anything like that. Those sorts of requirements can be hard to get around (although a good cover letter goes a long way!)

Here are the most important things for you to take away from this:

1. If you're underqualified, say so in the cover letter, and state why this won't be a problem.

The list of functions in the ad that I don't know how to do is considerable: manage accounts payable and receivable, file taxes, executing benefits policies... but that's OK, because I want to learn those functions, and I have every confidence that I can. There are definitely some qualifications for jobs out there that you need to know from day 1, but this job is one where I could be trained to do all the things I don't know how.

But above all, don't just gloss over it. If you don't meet the qualifications, but don't seem to care that you don't, your cover letter will go right in the trash. Guaranteed. Well, unless your dad owns the company or something (in which case, why are you reading this?)

2. Emphasize how your experience will help you overcome hurdles.

I have experience working on a congressional campaign, and working in multiple administrative functions at my school. But notice that the job experience I cite the most is my work in fast food. Normally, fast food is not a jumping off point to bigger and better things (I'm just saying). But the logistics of running a shift are comparable to running any kind of office, or program, or event: you use your experience to show that you have the personal attributes needed to make it work. I don't know how to run trainings for non-profit managers, but I do know how to motivate and coach well, and I can demonstrate my ability to deal with a deadlines and high-stress situations. And that's what they're really looking for.

3. Be otherwise flawless.

Your cover letter and resume really just can't have any mistakes. The bigger the leap from your experience to the job, the more important this one is. I'm pretty sure mine had no errors, though I do often fall into what people tell me is called "passive voice," which is apparently super terrible despite being grammatically correct and often sounding better.

4. Don't be gimmicky.

Ask a Manager has a great post about how this is bad for both the candidate and the hire-er. Now, I think its important to turn in your papers as clean and wrinkle-free as possible, and I think having a solid resume layout can demonstrate certain valuable aesthetic skills, but perfuming paper (unless, and only POSSIBLY unless, you're applying at a perfume store or cosmetics counter or something), using writing gimmicks like your name being an abbreviation for all your good traits, or other non-merit related chicanery is a bad idea.

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Well guys, that's a start. But a bit of advice I want you to consider before you try this: really consider whether a more qualified person would be a better hire for this company. I felt confident that while that position might be challenging for me, I would be able to handle it and eventually kick ass. But if the job requires a skill set that you don't have and aren't certain you could pick up in the first couple weeks, consider doing yourself and your hiring managers a favor and only compete for jobs that are a good match for both of you!