15. Oddball phrasing, such as "an opportunity to expand my strengths and delete my weaknesses... " Or, "You may feel that I'm a tad overqualified." Or, "Enclosed herewith please find my resume." Do you talk that way? You should write the way you talk. Avoid bad phrasing by having others critique your letters.
16. Typos, like "thankyou for your assistance."
17. Mailing form letters. Some letters contain "fill in the blanks." Generic forms don't work well.
18. Not saying enough. One want ad letter read, "Please accept my enclosed resume for the position of Executive Director. Thank you." That's too short. A letter is an opportunity to sell. So say something about yourself.
19. Ending with "Thank you for your consideration." EVERYONE ends their letters this way, so please don't. Try something different, like "I'm excited about talking further," or "I know I could do a good job for you." The same goes for "Sincerely," and "Sincerely yours." EVERYONE uses them. Find something different like "Good wishes," "With best regards," or "With great enthusiasm."
20. WRITING IN ALL CAPS. IT'S HARD TO READ. DON'T DO IT.
21. Abbreviating Cir., Ave., Dec., and all other words. Take time to spell words out. It looks so much better.
22. Forgetting to enclose your resume. If you say you're enclosing one, then do.
23. Justifying right margins. When you "justify right," you create large gaps between words inside your sentences.
24. Forgetting the date and/or salutation.
25. Using dot matrix printers. Most are hard to read and they make you look like an engineer. Whenever possible, use a laser printer, even if you have to borrow one.
26. Talking nonsense. "I work in instilling proper conduits for mainstream educational connections while also encouraging individual creative forms." What? Run that one by me again.
27. Forgetting to put the letter in the envelope. (I received an empty FedEx package yesterday.)
28. The 300-word paragraph. The worst mistake in marketing is writing too long. Limit sentences to seven or eight words, and limit paragraphs to four or five lines. In letter writing, short is usually better. I try to limit my own letters to one page, seldom two. I believe if I can't say it well in one page, I probably can't say it well at all.
29. Bonus tip from Laurie Schell. In an e-mail to me she said, "I thought you may want to add a number 29. As a manager my boyfriend reads a lot of cover letters and complains when he receives them with really small font. Even a regular size font is hard to read if he has forgotten his glasses that day, and so small-font letters are immediately dismissed."
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