Cover Letter Format: Layout, Length and Where It Goes

Format is a floor, not a lever

A well-formatted cover letter does not get you an interview. A badly formatted one loses you the reading, which is the only reason to care about this at all.

The failures are consistent and mechanical. Two pages of dense text. A different font from the resume. A greeting to Sir or Madam. Six paragraphs where four would do. An attachment nobody opens because the email said nothing.

None of those are about the quality of your argument. All of them reduce the chance the argument gets read. The purpose of getting the format right is to remove every reason to stop reading before the content has a chance.

What follows is the shape that works, and the delivery decisions people get wrong more often than the writing.

The layout

Match the resume. Same font, same size, same header block with your name and contact details, same margins. Two documents that look like a set signal that someone prepared them together, and the effect is subtle and real.

Use a single column with no design elements. Cover letters are read as text, frequently pasted into an applicant tracking system, and any layout cleverness either breaks or gets stripped.

Left-align everything, including the closing. Justified text creates uneven spacing that reads badly at letter length, and centred elements look like a template.

Set the body at 10 to 12 points with normal line spacing and a blank line between paragraphs rather than indents. Margins between two and two and a half centimetres. If you are fighting the margins to fit the page, the letter is too long and the answer is cutting rather than compressing.

Include the date and the company name if you are producing a formal document. Skip the full postal address block, which is a convention from an era of posted letters and now just occupies the top third of the page.

Length

One page, always. Within that, 250 to 400 words is the working range and the lower half of it is usually better.

Three or four paragraphs. Anything more and you are repeating the resume, which is the most common way cover letters go wrong and the reason many hiring managers stopped reading them.

Short paragraphs matter more than short total length. Three lines each, four at most. A letter arriving as two solid blocks gets skimmed for the company name and abandoned, however good the sentences are.

Half a page is acceptable and often stronger than a full one. Nobody has ever complained that a cover letter was too short if it said something specific.

One clear takeaway: if you are adjusting margins to make it fit, cut a paragraph instead.

The four paragraphs

The structure is stable across almost every situation, and knowing it removes the blank-page problem.

Opening. The role, and the specific reason you are writing to this company. One or two sentences. This is the paragraph most often wasted on announcing that you are writing to apply, which the reader already knows.

The strongest match. The single closest thing you have done to what they need, with a number attached. Not a summary of your career. One example, told properly.

The second point. Either another relevant piece of evidence, or the answer to whatever question your application raises: a career change, a gap, a move to a new city, a level that looks like a stretch.

Close. What you want next, in one sentence, without flourish. Thanking them for their time and consideration is fine and nothing more elaborate is needed.

Our post on writing a cover letter covers what goes inside those paragraphs. The structure here is the container.

The greeting

Use a name whenever you can find one, and you can find one more often than you try.

The posting sometimes names the team. The company page names department heads. A search on LinkedIn filtered to the company and the function usually resolves it in a couple of minutes. Getting this right is a small signal of effort that reliably registers.

When you genuinely cannot find a name, address the group: "Dear Hiring Team", "Dear Engineering Team", "Dear [Company] Recruiting". All are better than the alternatives.

Avoid "To Whom It May Concern", which reads as a form letter, and "Dear Sir or Madam", which reads as both formal and dated. "Dear Hiring Manager" is acceptable and unremarkable.

Do not guess a name from an incomplete search. Addressing the wrong person is worse than addressing nobody, and it happens most often when someone finds a recruiter for a different department and assumes.

Email or attachment

This is the decision people think least about and it changes whether the letter is read at all.

Where you are applying by email, paste the letter into the body. An email that says "please find my resume and cover letter attached" and nothing else has thrown away its own first impression, and the attached letter frequently goes unopened.

Keep the subject line plain and informative: the role title, the reference number if there is one, and your name. Nothing else.

Where an application portal has a separate cover letter upload, attach a PDF. Where it has a text box, paste plain text and check what the formatting did to it, because these boxes strip styling in ways that can leave the letter as one unbroken block.

Where the portal makes it optional, include one anyway if you have something specific to say. Optional fields left empty are a small negative signal, and the letter costs you ten minutes when the structure is already decided.

The file itself

PDF unless the posting asks for Word. PDF preserves the layout everywhere and is universally readable. Some older systems parse Word more reliably, which is why a posting that specifies it should be obeyed rather than second-guessed.

Name the file so it makes sense in a folder of two hundred. "Jane Okafor - Cover Letter - Product Manager.pdf" is right. "cover letter final v3.pdf" is what most people send, and it is the version that survives on the reviewer's desktop with your name nowhere on it.

Check the file opens on a phone. A meaningful share of first reads happen on a screen the size of a hand, and a letter that renders as unreadably small text loses at that moment rather than on merit.

The content that fills that structure comes from the posting. Our ATS resume scanner pulls out what a job description is actually asking for, which is where the second paragraph comes from.

Formats that break the usual shape

A few situations call for something other than the standard four paragraphs, and knowing which is which saves a lot of second-guessing.

A referral. Lead with the name of the person who referred you, in the first line. It changes how the rest is read, and burying it in the third paragraph wastes the strongest thing you have. The letter can then be shorter than usual, because the referral has done the work the opening paragraph normally does.

A speculative application. With no posting to respond to, the opening has to supply the context the posting would have. Say what you noticed about the company and what you think you could do for them, then keep the rest as normal. These letters run slightly longer and it is justified.

A creative field. Design, copywriting and some marketing roles read the letter as a work sample. The format can be looser and the writing has to be genuinely good, because you are being assessed on it rather than despite it. What does not change is the length.

Academic and research posts. These follow their own conventions, often two pages, with a structure the institution specifies. Follow their instructions rather than this guidance, since the reviewers are working from a checklist.

Public sector applications. Many require a statement addressing numbered criteria rather than a letter. Answer each criterion under its own heading with an example. Writing a flowing letter instead is the most common reason strong candidates score badly.

A checklist before sending

• The company name is correct everywhere, including the version you copied from the last application.
• The role title matches the posting exactly.
• The letter fits on one page with normal margins.
• The font and header match your resume.
• The greeting names a person or a team, not a category.
• The file is named with your name and the role.
• The email body says something, rather than pointing at attachments.

Two minutes of checking prevents the errors that get applications discarded for reasons unrelated to your suitability.

Questions people ask

How long should a cover letter be?

One page, 250 to 400 words, three or four paragraphs. Half a page is fine. Anything longer starts repeating the resume.

Should I paste the letter or attach it?

Paste it into the email body when applying by email. Attach a PDF when a portal has a dedicated upload field for it.

What if I cannot find the hiring manager's name?

Address the team or department. "Dear Hiring Team" is fine. Avoid To Whom It May Concern and Dear Sir or Madam, and never guess a name.

PDF or Word?

PDF, unless the posting asks for Word. PDF holds the layout everywhere; a posting that specifies Word usually has a reason.

Should the cover letter match the resume design?

Yes. Same font, same header, same margins. It reads as a prepared set rather than two documents assembled separately.

Related reading

• The Job Application Checklist Worth Running Every Time
• Taking Performance Feedback Without Losing the Room