If your cover letter for a job describes how youβve overcome personal adversity, your application will go to the bin. If you had to take out time due to mental or physical health reasons for example, you write (at least in Germany, and to a similar extent in the UK - although in the UK people are less bothered about CVs that arenβt a straight journey from school to your current job) something in your CV like βbreak due to illness, now fully recoveredβ (even if itβs under control rather than something that can be cured) to head off questions, and something similarly bland for other longish gaps between jobs. In your cover letter, you focus on what brought the job to your attention/and or what your general career plans are (first paragraph), what you bring to the job, taking the job advert - the profile of the job as well as the requirements - as your template (in the second paragraph) and what attracts you to the job and some polite words closing the letter (in the third paragraph). You do not dwell on the negative, even if it was in the past, because that will paint you as a moaner. Examples of how youβve overcome professional (!) difficulties are reserved (in a sanitised way) for the job interview because theyβd take to long to explain in a cover letter and could leave the impression that youβre slagging off your current or a previous employer if youβre offering them unprompted.
This does sound like a one-way street, and I recognise that particularly in the current stuation, it is a one-way street for most people. But the other side of the equation is the job ad, and Iβm sure all of you who are looking for a job can distinguish between job adverts that give of the impression that the prospective employer really wants some good and fitting new employees and others that simply donβt give a damn. Yeah, they have stuff on what they want from you (that section tends to be longer in Germany than in the UK), but they also tell you what they offer - what kind of job youβll do and the perks youβll get. Your application is offering perks back.
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