Recruiters and companies are looking for different things. The best thing that you can do when applying direct to a company, is to show what you know, show your

Recruiters and companies are looking for different things. The best thing that you can do when applying direct to a company, is to show what you know, show your enthusiasm (perhaps through one or two choice free software projects, but not so many that you'd look overstretched) and what you learned at college. For recruiters, you need to look at what the job description is after and try to match your CV as closely to it as reasonable without looking like you're lying (btw don't lie, you will get caught out). Stress your strengths where they're relevant to the role, but your cover letter is likely to be ignored by a recruiter, or rather not entered into the database so I'd keep it short and sweet and focus on matching acronyms and technologies to your experience in your CV.