harvard cover letter 2022

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Here's an example of the perfect cover letter, according to Harvard career experts

Found your dream job? Don't be so confident that you'll get hired: It's very likely that there are several other qualified candidates competing for that same position.

That's where the cover letter comes in. Including a cover letter to complement your resume can be an effective way to impress hiring managers: It displays your strong writing skills, sets you apart from other applicants and shows that you went the extra mile.

Linda Spencer, associate director and coordinator of career advising at Harvard Extension School, says that a solid cover letter answers two key questions :

• Why are you the right fit for the job?
• How will you add value to the organization?

"It takes the average employer about seven seconds to review these documents," says Spencer. "They're not reading, they're skimming. So you need to make it clear right off the bat how you can add value."

Here's an example of what a strong cover letter looks like, according to Harvard career experts (click here to enlarge):

Credit: Harvard University, Office of Career Services / Harvard Extension School, Career and Academic Resource Center

Don't know where to start? The career experts share tips on how to write a cover letter that stands out:

1. Address the letter to a specific person

"To whom it may concern" is one of the fastest ways to get your application deleted. Always try to address your letter to a specific person — usually the hiring manager or department head. Include their name, title, company and address at the very top below the date.

If you don't know who to address, LinkedIn is a great place to start. Simply enter the company name and some keywords into the search bar (e.g., "Google, hiring manager, sales") and a variety of related profiles will appear.

2. Clearly state the purpose of your letter

Your opening line doesn't need to be anything extravagant. In fact, it should be the complete opposite, according Harvard's career experts.

Keep it simple and straightforward: State why you're writing, the position you're applying for and, if applicable, how you found the job listing.

3. Don't rehash your entire resume

You're not writing a 1,000-word essay that summarizes your resume. The cover letter is your chance to explain why you're genuinely interested in the company and its mission.

No need to make it super formal, either. Use your own voice and add some personal flourishes to make the letter more interesting.

"If you have relevant school or work experience, be sure to point it out with one or two key examples," the career experts note . "Emphasize skills or abilities that relate to the job. Be sure to do this in a confident manner and keep in mind that the reader will also view your letter as an example of your writing skills."

4. Use action words and don't overuse the pronoun "I"

Instead of using flowery words and cliche claims like "fast thinker" and "highly creative," go for action words.

Here are a few examples of action verbs to use when highlighting specific skills:

• To demonstrate leadership skills : Accomplished, contracted, assigned, directed, orchestrated, headed, delegated
• To demonstrate communication skills : Addressed, translated, presented, negotiated, moderated, promoted, edited
• To demonstrate research skills : Constructed, examined, critique, systematized, investigated, modeled, formulated
• To demonstrate creative skills : Revitalized, redesigned, developed, integrated, conceptualized, fashioned, shaped

Avoid using too many "I" statements because it can come off as though you're mostly interested in what you can gain from the company. The focus should be on what the company can gain from you.

5. Reiterate your enthusiasm and thank the reader

The closing of your letter should:

• Reiterate your interest in the position
• Thank the reader for his or her consideration
• State that you look forward hearing back from them
• Include your signature at the very bottom

6. Be consistent in formatting

Visual consistency makes a big difference. Keep your letter to just one page and use the same font (and size) as you did for your resume. If you're converting the letter to a PDF, make sure the formatting is translated properly.

Dustin McKissen is the founder of McKissen + Company , a strategic communications firm in St. Charles, Missouri. He was also named one of LinkedIn's "Top Voices in Management and Corporate Culture." Follow him on LinkedIn here.

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Don't miss:

• Here's an example of the perfect resume, according to Harvard career experts
• 15 years ago, Google's CEO had a brilliant response to a tricky interview question — and it helped him get hired
• 6 things I loved about the most impressive resume I've ever seen—based on my 20 years of hiring and interviewing

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Job Placement

Placement timeline, faqs, and interview advice.

Placement Directors 2024/25: Gabriel Chodorow-Reich and Jeremy Stein To assist with the preparation and planning for the market, refer to the suggested timeline and FAQs. 

Timeline   (2024/25)

FAQ 1 (coming May 2024)

FAQ1a (coming August 2024)

FAQ2 (coming September 2024)

FAQ3 (coming October 2024)

Application List Template   (use this when you create your application list)

How to Do a Great Interview on Zoom  

Zoom Setup Tips: Lighting, Screens, Sound   (with thanks to Shengwu Li) 

Negotiating and Exploding Offers   (see also Advice from Chris Blattman 2014/15) 

CV, Resume, and Webpage

CV Curriculum Vitae Template  (6/25/23 version) for Harvard Economics Job Market Candidates (in Word using table layout; turn on "view gridlines" to fill it out ) and general information  ( The CV Guide ) on constructing your Curriculum Vitae. Note: The CV template is new for 2023/24 and specific to Harvard economics.

Resume For those applying to any private-sector job, a non-academic resume is your calling card. The Office of Career Services provides excellent help in the form of workshops and Resume and Cover Letter advice and templates. Previous Harvard students give OCS high marks, especially in helping with Resume writing.

Webpage Harvard is discontinuing the creation of Open Scholar pages. Paul Millett will work with every job market student to set up their webpages on Campus Press, the Harvard substitute for Open Scholar. Students with other websites (e.g., GitHub) can then add a line (e.g., "see my personal website") on the Campus Press page to enable access to their materials, including CV, JMP, and other papers.

Advice and Resources for the Job Market  

Compiling Your List

• JOE -  https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/    JOE will be your main resource.
• EJM -  https://econjobmarket.org / EJM will also be important.

Other platforms to search include:

• European Econ Assoc -  https://www.eeassoc.org/
• APPAM -  https://www.appam.org/
• Chronicle of Higher Ed -  https://jobs.chronicle.com/
• American Finance Assoc -  https://afajof.org/
• SSRN -  https://www.ssrn.com/index.cfm/en/
• Royal Ecoonomic Society RES -  https://res.org.uk/
• Academy of Management AOM -  https://aom.org/

Writing Resources

Writing well and effectively are important skills. These resources will help.

• Claudia Goldin, The Ten Most Important Rules of Writing Your Job Market Paper
• Deidre McCloskey, Economical Writing
• William Zinsser, On Writing Well; The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Tips and Advice (from Job Market Gurus and Harvard PhDs) and More Job Market Facts

• AEA Job Market Committee 2022 Report: Job Market Openings by Sector 
• American Economic Association, Communications from the Committee on the Job Market . Some recent information on supply and demand (what else?), plus the AEA’s advice to employers.
• Alex Albright, " So You Want to Go on the Job Market ." Reflections, sage advice, and a lot of data from one of our 2022 PhD graduates (and talented holiday party emcee).
• Chris Blattman, Managing the Academic Job Market . Chris Blattman (University of Chicago Harris School) offers some of the best advice we’ve seen. Read it. Some will be more relevant and some less relevant to your specific job search.
• John Cawley, Guide and Job Market Advice (2018-2019 edition). A standard resource in economics.
• Alex Chan, My Experience in the 2022-23 Job Market  Come to the Oct. 17, 2023 placement meeting and hear Alex. 
• Shoshana Vasserman's Job Market Tips  
• Eric Zwick, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Market . Zwick graduated from Harvard in 2014 and is an Associate Professor of Finance at University of Chicago Booth School.
• Anonymous, The Market in the Time of COVID (2021).
• Non-Academic Tips and Advice . Note the advice under “Job search through connections: Who.” You have lots of friends and family – previous Harvard PhDs. If they are working at a place you’d like to be, use them as a resource to find non-academic jobs.

GSAS Resources The  Office of Career Services  offers a wide range of services and resources tailored specifically to the needs of graduate students pursuing positions in academic and non-academic markets.

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The dynamic cover letters formula for job-search success.

Posted September 22nd, 2022

If you need help building a great team at your company, connect with the group at Harvard Resource Solutions. We provide the talented candidates your organization needs. Schedule a meeting with us at your earliest convenience.

Contact Harvard Resource Solutions,  now hiring for Detroit jobs today .

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How to Write a Cover Letter in 2022 (With 6 Cover Letter Examples)

Posted by CV Nation on Dec 11, 2021

The ultimate guide to writing a cover letter to land jobs in 2022, with 6 cover letter examples and everything you need to know to impress recruiters.

When applying for jobs, you will usually be required to submit a cover letter. Recruiters use cover letters to assess your suitability for jobs and learn about your experiences, skills and achievements.

An effective cover letter can help you stand out from the crowd and make a positive impression on recruiters.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to prepare a cover letter for any job that does exactly that. We’ll also show you six great cover letter examples.

What is a Cover Letter?

Cover letters, often referred to as motivation letters, are introductory letters that usually accompany your CV when applying for jobs.

Cover letter are usually one-page in length, expressing why you’re applying for the job and highlighting your skills, experiences and achievements.

How to Structure Your Cover Letter

When writing your cover letter, follow our six-step process to ensure you cover all the key points and sell yourself as effectively as possible.

Take a look at the cover letter examples in this guide to see how we have used this formula to create engaging, effective cover letters.

Here is our six-step cover letter writing process:

1. Introduction

2. overview of knowledge and expertise, 3. unique value proposition (uvp), 4. why you want to work for the company, 5. key skills, 6. polite ending and call to action.

Let’s take a look at these steps in detail:

Start your cover letter with a concise introduction that explains who you are and why you’re applying for the job.

Provide a brief overview of your knowledge, experience and expertise. Use this paragraph to draw attention to what you bring to the table.

Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is what makes you unique. Demonstrating your UVP can set you apart from other candidates and convince recruiters you’re the right person for the job.

Identify your UVP by thinking about what makes you unique, then convey this in your cover letter.

Convey why you want to work for the company. This is where you can use your research to show how you are aligned with the company’s values and culture.

Showcase a few of your key skills to show what you can bring to the table.

Bring your cover letter to a close by thanking the reader for their time and including a concise call to action. This will usually be for the recruiter to get in touch with you to discuss your application in more detail.

Cover Letter Example

One of the keys to writing a great cover letter is research. By researching the company you’re applying to work for, you’ll be able to tailor your cover letter and show how you’re aligned with the company’s culture and values.

How do you conduct research into companies?

To conduct research into the company you’re applying to work for, examine the company’s website. You may want to take a look at their ‘About Us’ or ‘Careers’ pages. This will help you learn about their culture and what it’s like to work for them.

Additionally, you could view the company’s social media accounts and the job description to learn more about their culture and values.

Email Cover Letters

If you’re submitting a cover letter in the body of an email, you will need to format it slightly different to cover letters that are attached to emails or submitted as a document.

Email cover letters do not need to include the address of the company you’re applying to work for. You also do not need to include your name at the top of the cover letter, as is demonstrated in some of the cover letter examples in this guide.

Here is an example of an email cover letter:

Email Cover Letter Example

How to Write a Cover Letter with No Experience

If you’ve got no experience in the profession that you’re pursuing a job in, focus on your transferable skills and experiences.

For example, if you’re applying for a customer service job but have no customer service experience, you could focus on your communication skills and your experiences working with customers.

Here is an example cover letter for someone with no experience:

Cover Letter Example - No Experience

How to Professionally Format Your Cover Letter

Line spacing.

Using appropriate line spacing between paragraphs ensures your cover letter is professional in appearance and easy to read.

Letters that don’t use line spacing often appear as one huge block of text. Most recruiters won’t even read these letters, so make sure to utilise your word processor’s line spacing feature.

To add spacing to your cover letter in Microsoft Word, highlight the text, click ‘Layout’, then add 8 pt. spacing in the ‘After’ section.

This will ensure your paragraphs are easily distinguished from each other. It will also optimise your recruiter’s reading experience, which can only be a positive thing!

Margins are the blank spaces at the edges of your cover letter. The size of your margins will depend on the amount of content in your cover letter.

If you have a lot of content to include, your margins should be narrower, which would give you more space. If you have a shorter cover letter, your margins should be wider.

Ideally, you should be aiming for margin sizes of between 1.7 cm (0.66”) and 2.5 cm (0.98”).

3. Fonts & Fonts Sizes

Select a common, easy to read font, such as Calibri, Times New Roman and Arial. Avoid using overly creative fonts. Such fonts will make your cover letter look unprofessional and difficult to read.

For most fonts, including Times New Roman, Calibri and Arial, you should choose a font size of between 10.5 pt. and 12 pt.

Further Cover Letter Tips

Don't exceed one page.

Unless you’ve been specifically asked to submit a longer cover letter, don’t exceed one page in length. Long cover letters make for a poorer reading experience and recruiters may not read your cover letter if it’s too long.

Proofread your cover letter

Ensure to proofread your cover letter to iron out any spelling and grammatical errors. Errors in your cover letter can make you look unprofessional and have a negative impact on your job applications.

Give your document a professional title

When saving your cover letter, make sure to give it a simple, professional title. Examples of professional titles for your cover letter include ‘Cover Letter’ or ‘My Cover Letter’.

Avoid unprofessional titles such as ‘coverletter023432’. When recruiters see such titles on documents, they may instantly see you as unprofessional.

State that your CV is attached/enclosed

If you’re submitting your CV along with your cover letter, state that you’ve enclosed the CV. To do this, include the abbreviation ‘Enc.: CV’ at the bottom of your cover letter, as demonstrated in the cover letter samples in this guide.

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Natural Resources Defense Council Fall 2024 Litigation Intern

NRDC is a non-profit environmental advocacy organization. We use law, science, and the support of 3.1 million members and online activists to protect the planet’s wildlife and wild places and to ensure the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities. NRDC was founded in 1970 and our people helped write some of America’s bedrock environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act and many of the implementing regulations. Today, our team of more than 700 lawyers, scientists, economists, policy advocates, communications experts, and others work across the United States and the globe from our offices in Beijing; Bozeman, Montana; Chicago; New Delhi; New York; San Francisco; Santa Monica; and Washington, D.C. 

NRDC is seeking three Fall 2024 Litigation Interns to work with the Litigation Team associated with our Chicago, San Francisco/Santa Monica, and Washington, D.C. offices. 

Position Summary  

The Litigation Team is a group of approximately 40 lawyers, litigation assistants and other operations staff who pursue litigation across a broad range of environmental and public health issues, in collaboration with and on behalf of communities most impacted by environmental injustices (including Black, indigenous, and people of color, and low-income and rural communities). Over the past five years, we have litigated cases against the federal government to prevent climate pollution, challenge agency approvals of toxic chemicals and pesticides, resist the suspension of clean water safeguards, oppose offshore drilling and seismic exploration for oil and gas, defend national monuments, and protect energy efficiency standards, among other matters. We also bring enforcement cases against corporate and governmental entities whose violations harm human health and the environment—including to protect the people of Newark, New Jersey and Flint, Michigan, from lead in drinking water; to remediate toxic pollution in the Penobscot River in Maine; to abate mold in New York City public housing for residents with asthma; and to halt air pollution from a coal-fired power plant in Illinois. 

Legal interns play an active role on the frontlines to protect our planet and the communities that depend on it. Our interns do concrete work in support of our litigation, including substantive writing and research, and collaborate with NRDC Litigation attorneys. 

The internship typically lasts about 10 weeks, beginning at the start of the intern’s fall semester and ending before exams. Start and end dates and other scheduling details are negotiable, but we look for a minimum time commitment of two days (14 hours) a week over the course of an academic term.  This posting will be open until April 15, 2024.

Interns will have the option to work in person, remotely, or a hybrid of both. 

This is a paid position, unless the student is seeking academic credit and their school requires the internship to be unpaid. 

You can find more information about our Semester-Based Litigation Internship Program  here . 

Responsibilities

The most common intern assignments are legal memos, sometimes coupled with informal oral presentations to case teams. Interns may also, depending on assignment availability and interest, contribute to the drafting of other litigation documents such as briefs and complaints. Interns are also invited to participate in litigation planning and strategy meetings. 

Qualifications

This internship is designed for current law school students in their second or third year of a J.D. program or in an LLM program. In assessing candidates, we look for: 

• Commitment to NRDC’s mission and values;
• Strong legal writing, analytical, and oral communication skills;
• Experience effectively working on a team;
• Creativity and resourcefulness;
• Commitment to public service, equity, or justice;
• Demonstrated ability to work with people across different social identities and backgrounds; and
• Record of academic and/or professional accomplishment.

A successful candidate need not satisfy all of these criteria. In particular, because a key purpose of our semester legal intern program is to help our interns learn and develop new legal skills, we welcome applicants who have room to grow as legal writers, researchers, and communicators. 

NRDC is committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, both  in our work  and  in our workplace . We believe that celebrating and actively welcoming diverse voices and perspectives is essential to solving the planet’s most pressing environmental problems, and we encourage applications from candidates whose identities have been historically under-represented in the environmental movement. 

We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate in hiring or employment on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, marital status, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. The incumbent will not qualify as an employee, fellow, volunteer, or independent contractor of NRDC, nor will the incumbent be guaranteed employment at the end of the internship term. Our offices are open and we are operating in a hybrid model. We offer NRDCers flexibility, and we encourage them to come into the office and spend meaningful time there in collaboration with their colleagues. We call this purposeful presence. As a science-based organization, NRDC aims to do our part to help contain the COVID-19 public health crisis. For the sake of health, safety, and equity, we ask that people be vaccinated unless they have an approved medical or religious accommodation or other exemption in accordance with state and local law. We consider a person to be vaccinated two weeks after receiving one full course of a CDC-approved vaccine. In accordance with state or local law, new hires will be asked to attest to vaccination. Those wishing to do so may request medical or religious accommodations or other exemptions. NRDC treats all vaccination-related data confidentially, in keeping with local, state, and federal laws. To apply, visit  www.nrdc.org/careers  and upload your résumé, cover letter, law school transcript, list of at least two references, and a short legal writing sample. In your cover letter, please indicate which office you are applying to, or if you would like to be fully remote. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis, with preference given to applications submitted before April 1. Due to the high volume of applications, we will contact only those candidates we would like to interview. Please no phone calls, emails, or in-person résumé drop-offs.  If you experience technical problems while applying or if you are a person with a disability and need assistance applying online, please reach out to iCIMS Customer Care at 1-800-889-4422.

For more about NRDC, visit  www.nrdc.org .

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Harvard Removes Binding of Human Skin From Book in Its Library

The decision to find a “respectful final disposition” for human remains used for a 19th-century book comes amid growing scrutiny of their presence in museum collections.

By Jennifer Schuessler and Julia Jacobs

Of the roughly 20 million books in Harvard University’s libraries, one has long exerted a unique dark fascination, not for its contents, but for the material it was reputedly bound in: human skin.

For years, the volume — a 19th-century French treatise on the human soul — was brought out for show and tell, and sometimes, according to library lore, used to haze new employees. In 2014, the university drew jokey news coverage around the world with the announcement that it had used new technology to confirm that the binding was in fact human skin.

But on Wednesday, after years of criticism and debate, the university announced that it had removed the binding and would be exploring options for “a final respectful disposition of these human remains.”

“After careful study, stakeholder engagement, and consideration, Harvard Library and the Harvard Museum Collections Returns Committee concluded that the human remains used in the book’s binding no longer belong in the Harvard Library collections, due to the ethically fraught nature of the book’s origins and subsequent history,” the university said in a statement .

Harvard also said that its own handling of the book, a copy of Arsène Houssaye’s “Des Destinées de L’Ame,” or “The Destiny of Souls,” had failed to live up to the “ethical standards” of care, and had sometimes used an inappropriately “sensationalistic, morbid and humorous tone” in publicizing it.

The library apologized, saying that it had “further objectified and compromised the dignity of the human being whose remains were used for its binding.”

The announcement came more than three years after the university announced a broad survey of the human remains across its collections, as part of the intensifying reckoning with the role of slavery and colonialism in establishing universities and museums . In a statement, Harvard’s president at the time, Lawrence S. Bacow, apologized for the university’s role in practices that “placed the academic enterprise above respect for the dead and human decency.”

A report released in 2022 identified more than 20,000 human remains in Harvard’s collections, ranging from full skeletons to locks of hair, bone fragments and teeth. They included the remains of about 6,500 Native Americans, whose handling is governed by the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, as well as 19 from people of African descent who may have been enslaved .

The survey also highlighted items whose origins lay outside the context of colonialism and slavery, including ancient funerary urns that may contain ashes or bone fragments, early-20th-century dental samples and, at Houghton Library, the Houssaye book.

The book arrived at Harvard in 1934, via the American diplomat John B. Stetson, an heir to the hat fortune. It had been bound by its first owner, Dr. Ludovic Bouland, a French doctor, who inserted a handwritten note saying that “a book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering.” A memo from Stetson, according to Houghton, said that Bouland had taken the skin from an unknown woman who died in a French psychiatric hospital.

Harvard’s decision follows a pressure campaign led by Paul Needham, a prominent scholar of early modern books, who, as allowed under Harvard’s policies, formed an “affinity group” last May that called for the binding to be removed and the woman’s remains given a proper burial in France. The topic received renewed attention last week when the group released an open letter addressed to Harvard’s interim president, Alan M. Garber, which was also published as an advertisement in The Harvard Crimson.

The letter, signed by Needham and two other leaders of the group, said that the library had a history of handling the book “brutishly on a regular basis, as an attention-grabbing, sensationalized display item.” It cited in particular a 2014 blog post about the scientific testing, since removed, which called the research “good news for fans of anthropodermic bibliopegy , bibliomaniacs and cannibals alike.”

Treating the skin-bound book as a kind of display “seems to me to violate every conceivable concept of treating human beings with respect,” Needham said in an interview after the announcement. Opting to unbind the book and determine a respectful disposition for it, he added, was the “right decision.”

In a list of frequently asked questions released with the university’s announcement, Tom Hyry, the director of Houghton, and Anne-Marie Eze, its associate librarian, said that the library had first imposed restrictions on access in 2015, and instituted a full moratorium on any new research in February 2023. Now, with the binding removed, the text itself will be fully available to view, both at the library and online .

Hyry and Eze said they expected the process of researching the binding and making a decision about its ultimate disposition would take “months, or perhaps longer.”

Jennifer Schuessler is a culture reporter covering intellectual life and the world of ideas. She is based in New York. More about Jennifer Schuessler

Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times. More about Julia Jacobs