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Finance

How do I Write a Consulting Cover Letter?

By N. Kalu
Updated May 17, 2024
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A well-thought out and comprehensive consulting cover letter should detail your educational fortitude, experience in consulting to date, and why exactly you are interested in working for a particular consulting firm. When you are applying for a consulting job, your cover letter is one of the first ways that potential employers can evaluate your readiness for the position. Make sure that the formatting and word choice in the consulting cover letter puts you in the best possible light.

Differentiating yourself from other consulting candidates should be your primary goal when writing a cover letter. To do this, be sure to include any degrees that you may have received. If you took on any internships during your college years, it would help to include details about the jobs as well as any significant projects accomplished in your consulting cover letter.

In addition to internship experience, you should also include any full-time consulting experience, particularly if that experience is with a competitor of the firm to which you are applying. Your experience should outline your work as a consultant, including quantifiable goals that were met, major clients that you worked with, and any significant promotions that were awarded to you. If you received certification in a particular discipline while at a previous firm, be sure to list this along with your other accomplishments.

While writing a consulting cover letter, you should always keep your audience in mind. Your cover letter will more than likely fall into the hands of a recruiter who has had years of experience dealing with consultants and knows what to look out for when hiring potential employees. Make sure that your word choices are professional yet approachable. Always err on the side of formal to avoid using informal speech that may offend the recruiter who reads your cover letter.

Explaining in clear terms your interest in the particular firm and how your experience matches the needs of the firm will give you a leg up in ultimately securing the job. Research the firm and really think about why you would like to work there in the future. This might relate to something in the company's mission statement or a certain client of the company fascinates you. Your letter should convince the reader that your experience meets the qualifications of the open position and also provide one or two examples of how you can use what you know to better the company.

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Discussion Comments

By nony — On Nov 05, 2011

@Mammmood - I agree. Another point worth mentioning is that the cover letter, while stressing accomplishments, should not simply restate information that’s in the resume.

What you want to do is first understand what the company is looking for. Read their job advertisement closely, and then retool, as it were, your accomplishments to sound like you’re the perfect fit for what they’ve looking for.

In my opinion this is the key to getting the interview. The recruiter knows what they want and they don’t have a lot of time. If they read a cover letter that sells your specific experience to their unique requirements, your letter will rise to the top of the stack.

By Mammmood — On Nov 05, 2011

I think that any cover letter for consulting should be heavy on accomplishments. Actually, I think this is more important than the other facets mentioned in the article, experience or degrees.

Experience and degrees are a given. The prospective employer wants to know, what can you do for him? So you should go heavy on accomplishments, how you improved the bottom line at a firm you were working at, or helped your clients improve their investment returns or whatever.

The nature of the accomplishments will depend on the kind of work that you did, but you should focus on them above other considerations.

By strawCake — On Nov 05, 2011

I think one thing to watch out for when you're writing any kind of cover letters is spelling and grammar. Most word processing programs come with a spell checker. There are also several free grammar checkers online. You could even have a grammar-savy friend take a look at your cover letter for you. Or, look at some cover letter examples for some grammatically correct common cover letter phrases.

In this day and age, there is no excuse for egregious errors in spelling and grammar anywhere. But especially when you're applying for a job!

I have a friend who works in the hiring department of her company. When she sees a cover letter that is full of errors, she throws it right in the trashcan!

By starrynight — On Nov 04, 2011

@JessicaLynn - I agree that short and sweet is always better as far as cover letters go. After all, the recruiter probably has a ton of those things to read. I can imagine someone getting bored with a cover letter that is way too long.

I think this article also make a good point about highlighting your consulting experience. Working as a consultant is different than working as an employee. So, I think if I was going to hire a consultant, I'd want someone with credentials in my industry, as well as consulting experience.

By JessicaLynn — On Nov 03, 2011

When I was in school, I took a professional preparation class. One thing they really stressed about cover letters was to keep it short and sweet. Normally, you submit your cover letter with your resume. So, you don't need to use the cover letter to talk about every job you've ever had!

As the article said, you should explain why you're a good fit for the job you're applying for. So you would use a consultant cover letter to talk about how your past experience qualifies you for the job. Also, they told us it helps if you can show you have a good understanding of the job you're applying for.

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